Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, there is a major expansion project underway in the emergency department at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, Milton. We refer to it as Milton Hospital for us old timers. But the president of bid, Milton, Rich Fernandez is joining us to tell us about that project and also about an upcoming project in Quincy Center. So Rich, good to see you again.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Yeah, great to see you, Joe. It's been a while.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: It's been a little while. There was, you know, this matter of a pandemic that got in the way.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: That was the last time I was here. It was 2020, I think it was probably September. We were opening up an urgent care site because the satellite ED was closing. So, yeah, trying to keep our pulse on Quincy. So absolutely appreciate you having me.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: We're glad to have you as well. Speaking of the urgent care center that is still open and functioning, right?
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Totally. Quincy Center Urgent care has X ray laboratory, primary care and specialty care. So right there on 199 Walter Hannon Way. But it's, it's been busy. A huge success. And I can tell you for the majority of patients, I think 70% of the patients seen there are from the city of Quincy. So hopefully we're meeting the needs of people and people having a good experience.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Sure. And I know you'll be meeting more needs with the project across the way, but we'll talk about that in a little bit because today I want to focus on the emergency department at BID Milton. A big expansion project is underway.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: What's going on?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: And I would say also the story behind that one is it's a long time coming. I had it approved with our board on March 10, 2020.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: March 15th. Five days later, this pandemic hit so kind of threw us back in time a little bit. So this is four years in the making. This was part of an Overall kind of 10 year strategic plan for the hospital of how do we service people in Quincy and Milton and Randolph, our primary service areas, not just at the hospital but closer to where they are in the community. And that's why we opened up the urgent care site there. Yes, yes. So this project, again, we had a groundbreaking just a couple weeks ago, but it's going to be phenomenal. It's going to almost double the size of our current emergency department.
And you know, quite honestly, for the you and the people in the city, Quincy is the biggest utilizer, but not just of our urgent care, but also of our emergency department. So I know it's just a couple miles away, but people have found their way to Milton and this, I think, will just allow them to have more privacy, more. Less time in the waiting room and more time in the exam room with their physicians.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Sure. So how big will the project be? What are you expanding from to?
[00:02:40] Speaker B: So Today we have 19 rooms. We'll end up with 38 rooms with this.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: So literally doubling.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yep. And it's going to take a year. We actually, this four year of kind of holding back with the pandemic and other things. We actually are using a modular builder who was. The building's actually being built as we speak in Pennsylvania and will be shipped up here. So we'll literally do all the prep work, drop it down, and then spend probably about six months attaching it, getting the mechanicals going. So we hope to have it open a year from now. Seeing patients, very aggressive. Yeah. Yes.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Why is it needed, Rich man?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Well, if you've been, hopefully you haven't been in an emergency department, thankfully.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Knocking on wood. No, I have not.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: But, you know, we've had a need, like I said, we identified this need back in 2020 for this region in this area. Since then, we've had the Quincy satellite close, and then more recently, really sadly, Kearney hospital close, which they were seeing 20 to 25,000 visits. So it's a combination, I think, of these other emergency departments closing and people in this community needing an emergency department. And I think it's just the reputation and some of the services we've been able to offer, like the urgent care people say, why am I going to go in town if I can go to the emergency department locally? And we take a lot of pride in trying to get patients in and out reasonably quickly and a high level of quality. So the need is there. Our current emergency department with 19 rooms was built for 26,000 patients. We're seeing 42,000 patients a year. So I want to let people know the reason it's a little bit slower.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Wow, that's astounding.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: So we use hallway beds just like many emergency departments in eastern Massachusetts. This in theory. I'm not saying we won't use hallway beds, but this should get people in rooms out of the waiting room quicker. And the privacy of a room, which I think everybody would agree is better for many, many reasons.
Additionally, as part of those 19 rooms that we're adding, we're going to kind of reserve a few for what's called observation care. So you might come in the emergency department and have something that they don't need to admit you and stay overnight, but they want to monitor you a little Bit longer. So these beds will allow people with these kind of shorter cardiac and other type issues to be monitored in the emergency department as opposed to getting fully admitted, which is great for patients. Right. Because they hopefully will get out the next morning. But it also allows the throughput in the emergency department to be a little bit better. So we're excited about that. And that will actually create space up on the floors for true inpatient that need it. So in my mind, we're creating about 10% more capacity up on our floors for Truwin patients, which is the kind of heart of the hospital.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, with the expansion, will you also need more personnel? More doctors, nurses, administrators, staff?
[00:05:44] Speaker B: You know, what's interesting is because we're seeing the 42,000 patients, we have the staff physician. So there might be some incremental staff that we need to help just because it's a little bit more spread out. But our amazing staff are seeing those patients right now. We don't expect our volume to go radically up. When the emergency departments, it'll probably go up a little bit because quite honestly, it'll be new people will be great quality. Right. And they'll get in and out quicker than many other local. Other emergency departments. You know, probably a little more ambulance traffic. We'll see. But 80% of the patients that come to the emergency department walk in, so people are making a choice to drive.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: So you're already there anyway.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: You're kind of just relieving the pressure.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: Exactly. Meeting the demands.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's really about meeting the demands of our population. Right. The city of Quincy, the town of Randolph Milton and the surrounding areas, which more and more people, once they've come to see one of our providers, emergency department, they tend to come back. We take a lot of pride in that.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So how has Bid Milton Rich managed to survive and thrive in a climate where like Quincy Hospital couldn't totally.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: We're going through the same struggles. I mean, there's other hospitals in Eastern Massachusetts that are struggling. Right. Labor costs are increasing. Right. And reimbursement. Nobody wants to pay more for health care.
So we're looking at everything. We're turning over every stone, whether it's productivity with staff or negotiating contracts with suppliers and just trying to make sure we're as efficient as possible. I often say to staff, you know, for that MRI or scheduling, can we get one more patient in safely and high quality, because that gets one more person off the waiting list and one more person in a day, a week, a month earlier. But we really try to meet the patients where they are. Sure. For all services.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: This is not an inexpensive venture, I'm sure, for this expansion project. Talk a little bit about the funding behind it.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: And it went up since 2020. Yeah.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: What didn't?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: So it's a $30 million project.
Like I said, with the modular piece, it makes it a little bit less on site intensive. So that's helpful for our neighbors, but also makes it a little bit cheaper and it allows us to open it up within 12 months. So it's part of that. We're raising money.
The groundbreaking that we had is actually the end of what we're calling what we call the Everyday Exceptional campaign. It's that 10 year master plan to, you know, build the Quincy site. We also updated all of our inpatient rooms. So over the last three years, phase one of the Everyday Exceptional campaign, where we raised that was about a $12 million project. We raised north of $2 million for that. So all of our inpatient rooms, our nursing stations, hallways, bathrooms, everything has been, I would say, modernized for patients. And so this emergency department now is phase two of the Everyday Exceptional campaign. So we're trying to raise $5 million. We've raised about two and a half so far. We're grateful for the community's support, both the phase one and I can imagine in phase two, we'll see continued strong support because either you've used our emergency department or you want the kind of insurance policy that you have a great facility close to you. So sure.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Now you have corporate sponsors behind this as well.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Not corporate, but just our philanthropy team. So we have, you know, both individuals, grateful patients, medical staff, some foundations and others who really want to see this hospital thrive. So it's. The level of support has just been terrific. And in fact, I remember one time telling one of our staff how much we had raised and she, she was just blown away that there's that many people that want our patients and our staff to have such, you know, the facility that they should. So it's been great.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: A hospital is an integral part of any community, right. Not only for the services that it provides, but for the people that it employs and their families, right?
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Yep, yep, totally. I mean, you think of like health care and schools and other things, that's what matters to a lot of people. If you don't have your health, you know, a lot of those other things, employment, schooling, family and other things can get in the way. So we see ourselves as a critical part of the both economic, social and, you know, city or town fabric.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Any Concerns rich about the changes that are happening in Washington right now and how it impacts not only Milton, but healthcare in general.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Definitely it's concerns. Part of it's just the pace of change, the uncertainty, the back and forth. But some of the things that they're, you know, are being thrown out there would have a devastating impact on health care. And I don't care if you're in a red, blue or purple state now, when you affect research, when you affect funding for Medicaid and or Medicare, reducing benefits, that's going to have an impact. I mean the research piece from a long term, I mean we have some of the best research and it was purposeful through a lot of federal grant funding. That's what's put us in first place. Reducing that, I think in the long run could have some real negative consequences. And reducing funding for healthcare services anytime has big impacts.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: We should let folks know that the emergency department is open during instruction, right?
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Ambulances, everybody. We've done it. And in fact, patients walking in won't notice a whole lot of difference. I did want to mention too, we're building this emergency department. We're also putting in 85 additional parking spots.
Sometimes I hear for people, they have a little trouble parking. I'm sure in the city of Quincy, it's never an issue. No, no, it's never an issue.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Parking galore.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: So we will have our aim there is really to have our employees park in the new lot which is kind of a little bit further away from the main entrances so that we free up space for patients.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Well, you know what I mean. It was a small community hospital. That's its roots.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: So that's what it was built for originally.
The need has exceeded the.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: It's a regional. I look at it as a regional player. You know, I've been amazed. I've been there a little bit over eight years. When we build a program, a woman's health program, a robotic surgery program, or our amazing orthopedic program, patients, if they have a choice, they would much rather stay local.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: I understand that.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we have the same specialists. We have 44 specialists from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical center downtown that either make Milton their home or come out on some regular basis. So the specialists are in the community, the world class specialists are already there in the world class care. You know, our philosophy is if we can't do it just as good or better than downtown, we won't do it. Is that right? That's our standard.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: You're going to bring it even Closer to Quincy residence soon, right?
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Yes. I can't really speak too much about it because we need final regulatory approval. But I think we did do kind of some shot about a year ago where we're building right in downtown to the right. I think of it as the General Bridge area. There's a lot of work. I just drove by there. Looks like the city is getting up some of the parking lift there. But it's a really exciting project that we will be able to love to maybe come back to you in the next couple months if we get. If and when we get final approval. But I think it's really going to provide a deep bench of services that will be here for all the residents of Quincy and the greater South Shore.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah. For folks to give them orientation. It's kind of north of the General's Bridge area.
Fox Rock Properties of Quincy is the developer for this property project. So there'll be a health center. How will it be different than a hospital?
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Well, you won't stay overnight. We will close overnight. And we don't have an emergency department. So we will move all of the urgent care, primary care and specialties, plus a lot from the current location at Walter Hannon Way over to the new site.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: We'll also, you know, we propose to have, you know, pharmacy and full service lab and imaging and a bunch of other specialties including women's health and infusion for both cancer and medical issues, which again, people right now, they're traveling downtown.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: For that every day sometimes if they're doing radiation therapy. Right.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's been a really great partnership with the city. The mayor and his team have been great. Fox Rock has been wonderful to work with. So we're just waiting for that approval and then hopefully that would open up in summer. Summer of 2027.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. So I know you have city approval. So is it state approval you're waiting on?
[00:14:43] Speaker B: It's the. Yeah, yeah. State Department of what's called the termination of need in the Department of Public Health. So we're optimistic. But, you know, you want to make sure we meet the needs of whatever the regulators need.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Sure. Any events coming up for the community, Rich, you wanted to mention.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Nothing specific. I mean, we have just related to the fundraising for the emergency department. I call it friend and fundraising. We've been hosting things that we had, obviously something at the hospital and then some of our board of trustees or advisors, which we have a number of advisors from the city of Quincy on our board there, big or small, at a work site at a Home. Any way to help get the word out and make sure people know that Bid Milton is here for the city of Quincy and their residents. You know, we'd welcome opportunities to do that because Quincy usually has always been a little bit more difficult for us to try to figure out who are the. What are the right venues, who are the right people to talk to, how to build this momentum. And I think our emergency department is clearly one. Obviously this new Quincy site will be another one that we really want to make sure people know that our doors are open for everybody.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Sure. Bidmilton.org is your website, right?
[00:16:02] Speaker B: You got it.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Are you hiring? Are there opportunities?
[00:16:05] Speaker B: There are, yeah. So both in the main hospital and our outpatient centers, I would say in healthcare, we're always looking for good people. You know, I get calls and emails about people who need a little clinical experience for nursing. And we do whatever we can to get people in to get them a taste of healthcare or clinical services if they're in nursing school or we have programs with Quincy College around helping with techs and lab and other services. But healthcare, despite all the challenges, it is a very rewarding and both humbling because people put so much trust in you. So it's a great career.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: I've heard it as described as a calling more than a career. You know, kind of a passion and a purposeful mission that they have in life. Right.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Will you be hiring for the new center in Quincy?
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Oh, yes, that one. We don't have the staff. So for physicians, staff, techs, that I think will be a big piece. And again, we prefer and want to hire people locally. Right. They know the community, they look, talk, speak the language of the community and they know their friends. And if your friend recommends you, whether it's a restaurant or a healthcare provider or something, usually has a little bit more credibility. So, yes, that will be coming. So that's 2027. Would be the timing of that one.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Anything else you'd like to share with folks right now?
[00:17:31] Speaker B: No, just appreciate your inviting us on here again. Our emergency department, our name says Milton, but we serve the city of Quincy. It's the town of Randolph, Milton, Braintree and becoming even bigger. Right. Hyde Park, Dorchester, now with Cardinal.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Well, Norwood Hospital is still offline.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Brockton's back finally, actually, so that's helpful.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: So just people, we want their feedback. The next year on campus will be just a little bit tangled because of traffic, but shouldn't be too bad. The emergency department's open. If there's people that want to support us. Through our philanthropy. Like you said, go to our website. People have an interest in maybe hosting an event. It could be with business colleagues or others to help raise awareness. We're all ears for that too.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Great. We look forward to talking to you again in the not too distant future. Not five years from now.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: No, no, no. Let's keep it. I bet sometime this year we can talk. Absolutely.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Thanks so much, Rich. Great to see you.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: You got it. Thank you, Joe.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: You're welcome. And thanks for watching us here at AM Quincy. I'm Joe Catalano. We'll see you next time.
