Stony Brook University Medical Center has launched Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital, a clinical, academic, and financial commitment to the development of a unique regional resource dedicated to delivering expanded, specialty and tertiary healthcare needs of children and adolescents in Suffolk County.
Stony Brook Children’s, the only dedicated children’s hospital east of the Nassau/Queens border, will provide patients with state-of-the-art technology and world-class specialty physicians, nurses, and researchers, all contained in the only university-based children’s hospital on Long Island.
“Nothing is more important than the health and welfare of our children,” said Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D. “Today Stony Brook University Medical Center takes an important first step in making the dream of a Children’s Hospital for our region a reality.”
Simultaneous with the launch announcement, the organization received associate membership status in the prestigious National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions (NACHRI). NACHRI promotes the health and well being of all children and their families through support of children’s hospitals and health systems that are committed to excellence in providing health care to children.
“Stony Brook Children’s will build on our strong foundation in pediatric services and will be dedicated to help accommodate the unmet healthcare needs of the children in this region,” said Stony Brook University Hospital CEO Steven L. Strongwater. “As Long Island’s only university-based research hospital, we are uniquely positioned to provide this comprehensive care dedicated to the community’s youngest patients and their families while leading the way to new knowledge in children’s health.”
Initially, Stony Brook Children’s will be located within Stony Brook University Hospital as plans are developed for a free-standing facility in the future.
Leading Stony Brook Children’s as Physician-in-Chief is Margaret M. McGovern, Professor and Chair, Department of Pediatrics. She will continue as Chair of Pediatrics in the School of Medicine.
“With Suffolk’s high incidence of chronic childhood illnesses such as asthma, and with young accident victims and low birth weight infants, there is a driving need for a children’s hospital here,” said McGovern. “We will offer the best practices in diagnosis and healing. It will be a destination for doctors, nurses, and researchers who are continually seeking new ways of treating persistent and emerging threats to children’s health.”
SBUH currently operates 100 pediatric beds with a faculty of more than 100 pediatric providers in 30 different specialties and more than 200 voluntary pediatric faculty members. More than 7,000 children and adolescents are admitted to the SBUH each year and in 2009 the hospital provided primary pediatric care services to more than 50,000 children with Medicaid coverage. Next year, SBUMC will complete the construction of the most advanced Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in New York State, adding to its existing specialized children’s services, including the Regional Perinatal Center, the National Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center, the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program, the Pediatric Cardiology Program, Pediatric HIV and AIDS Center, Cystic Fibrosis Center, and the Cody Center for Autism and Development Disabilities.
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