Construction crews are busy at Strong West in Brockport as work is well underway on a complete renovation of the second floor of the former Lakeside Memorial Hospital building.
Bryan O’Donovan, Strong West Administrator of Operations, says the space which formerly housed the ICU and in-patient beds is being converted to house the Wilmot Cancer Institute, Interlakes Oncology and Hematology and Brockport Medical Associates, a primary care provider.
“Everything has been stripped,” he says of the second floor, “it will now be completely modern and state of the art.”
Both Interlakes Oncology, staffed by Robert Asbury, M.D., Jessica Kleiner, M.D., Alexander Solky, M.D., Lisa Acosta, P.A., and Cindy Ingalls, P.A., and Brockport Medical Associates Primary Care, staffed by Alex Fahoury, M.D., and Christina William, M.D., are currently housed at 156 West Avenue on the ground floor of the Strong West complex.
The move will help Strong West continue its commitment to patient-centered care, O’Donovan says.
Primary Care will go from 1,960 sq. ft. and four small exam rooms to 7,350 sq. ft. with seven large exam rooms which formerly served as in-patient rooms with two beds. Interlakes currently occupies 2,000 sq. ft. and has three exam rooms and six infusion chairs. The new location on the second floor encompasses 3,601 sq. ft. with four large exam rooms. The six infusion chairs will remain the same, but there will be much more space and brighter light from second-story windows. The new location will also feature one large private infusion room.
O’Donovan explains the current Interlakes location, “…. is not efficient for infusion, patients can be there for hours,” he says. The new location is, “designed with patients in mind.”
Much time and effort went into designing the new space which is roomy and bathed with natural light from the windows. O’ Donovan explains that the Interlakes space will be separate from the Primary Care office space.
On the Primary Care side of the second floor, the waiting room/check-in/check-out have been designed, “with efficiency for patients to get in and out,” O’Donovan says and emphasizes that with the oncology/primary care move to the second floor, Strong is continuing its commitment to, “provide excellent access to health care services.” The project, which has included a complete overhaul of the second floor’s infrastructure, has been a major investment for Strong/UR Medicine, O’Donovan says.
“The building was never wired for electronic medical records,” he explains, “everything behind the walls and above the ceiling is new,” – that includes HVAC and fireproofing.
The middle section of the second floor includes a new nurses’ station, a locker room for staff as well as a bright new staff break room that features a wall of windows. “It’s the best break room in all Strong Memorial Hospital,” O’ Donovan says.
Former in-patient rooms along the north side of the floor outside the oncology space will be used for physician offices.
Everything has been designed with future expansion in mind, O’Donovan adds and notes that with the renovation of the second floor, Strong West is now, “using the entire property.”
The target date for opening the second floor is June 1 and O’Donovan says an open house for the public will be planned around that time. “We love to have the community come back,” he says, noting that many people remember what the upper floors of the facility were like when it was Lakeside Memorial Hospital.
In the past 18 months since Strong West opened in Brockport, employment at the facility has grown from 30 to 115 full-time positions, he says.
“Morale is very high,” O’Donovan observes, “and we are getting great patient feedback. We feel really good about what we have done to fulfill the promise we made to the community.”
