“This is the educational and cultural center of Northern New York and we want it to be the medical center of Northern New York too.” –Michael Maresca, MD, Canton-Potsdam Hospital’s Chief of the Medical Staff
What does Canton-Potsdam Hospital do for the community? - Back to Top
Canton-Potsdam Hospital is a not-for-profit corporation with a charitable mission to serve the health care needs of St. Lawrence County and beyond for specialty services. The Hospital is certified by the New York State Department of Health as a 94-bed acute care facility. We provide emergency care, inpatient medical and surgical care, outpatient ambulatory surgical care, inpatient detoxification and substance abuse services, primary medical care, laboratory and radiological diagnostic and treatment services, physical therapy and rehabilitation services, cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, sleep services, and cancer care. CPH is also part of the team of front-line disaster response organizations in the County. The Hospital is located in a federally designated physician shortage region.
The Hospital’s all-volunteer Board of Directors has worked diligently to identify health needs and recruit health care workers to fill those needs. Board members have been instrumental in bringing physicians and allied health professionals to St. Lawrence County; since 2007, the Hospital has successfully recruited eleven physicians and seven allied health professionals to the area. We’ve been able to recruit top-quality physicians in part because of our Board’s commitment to providing the latest technology and upgrading facilities; we can offer the most up-to-date evidence-based diagnostic tests and treatments. The Hospital’s Board of Directors has also provided leadership for initiatives which have placed the Hospital in the top ranks nationally for quality and patient satisfaction.
By law, CPH is required to provide health care to those who need it, regardless of their ability to pay. In 2008, CPH provided over $400,000 in free care to the poor. We also collaborate with other hospitals and health care providers in the region to improve people’s health. One very visible example is the Mobile Mammography unit, which travels throughout the County providing mammograms to women who may not have access to these services otherwise. Other examples include our participation in the St. Lawrence County Health Initiative’s prevention programs, our support for smoking cessation counseling, and our outreach to community groups with free screenings and educational events.
We employ 800 talented people. Most of our employees live in communities across St. Lawrence County. Our employees log countless community service hours as members of Kiwanis, Rotary International, the Elks, Lions, Habitat for Humanity, and other service organizations. They serve as leaders in their profession and as local leaders on school boards, sports teams, and after-prom committees as well as on volunteer rescue squads, fire departments, and in places of worship. We are immensely proud of our dedicated employees and the service they provide as both health care workers and community members. Why is Canton-Potsdam Hospital expanding? - Back to Top
Canton-Potsdam Hospital has experienced unprecedented growth over the last ten years. ER visits have risen by 26%, inpatient discharges by 12%, and outpatient visits by 72%. To provide more care to more patients, we’ve hired more employees. In 1998, we had 605 employees; we now have 776. We need space to improve our services. We also need space to provide new services to meet the increased demand and plan for future demand.
Over the last two years, our Board of Directors has studied demographic trends, bed capacity, changes in reimbursements, trends in utilization and technology, changes in regulations, trends in disease acuity, and growing demand for services. Our Board also completed an in-depth study of our medical staff needs.
CPH is located in a federally designated physician shortage area. Recognizing the acute need to maintain the high quality of our current medical staff and to develop it further, our Board of Directors instituted an aggressive recruiting program. Since 2007, CPH has successfully recruited eleven physicians and seven physician assistants and nurse practitioners to our area. As recruitment continues, we need space for care givers to practice, and space for new services.
The Board also concluded from its analysis that we need to renovate and expand our emergency department, construct new inpatient rooms, consolidate cancer care on our main Potsdam campus, and provide parking so we can remove cars from neighborhood streets. We also need to develop medical offices and outpatient services.
Expanding our main campus is one part of a much larger strategic master facility plan that stems from the research described above.Planning is an ongoing activity. This strategic master facility plan is a living document, which will evolve over time. No one can say with certainty how health care will change in the next ten to twenty years. We are taking a responsible approach to health care planning, which has a three to five-year time horizon. Why expand the Leroy St. campus? - Back to Top
Our planning process has been informed by four inter-related types of growth: 1) irreversible growth that has already occurred; 2) growth of core services that cannot be divided; 3) new or replacement services that develop in response to new or different health needs; and 4) services that make sense to relocate, leading to consolidated growth on the main campus, or growth off-site.
Certain hospital services must be delivered together. Growth in these core services has already occurred, and trends indicate it will continue. Obstetrics, surgery, inpatient, and emergency services must be supported by nearby pharmacy, laboratory, and radiology services. Our main campus services must move or expand as a whole. These core services are not divisible.
Canton-Potsdam Hospital’s Board of Directors thoroughly reviewed options for dealing with growth of these core services. Constructing a new core service facility in another location is prohibitively expensive, at $75 million to $100 million. Since our current main campus has been built specifically for hospital uses, moving our core services to a new building would lead to a vacant, outdated hospital facility deteriorating in the middle of a formerly vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood.
Building a parking garage is also prohibitively costly at $25,000 per space (based on an independent analysis). Locating housing for health care workers in other Village locations will not solve the space problem for our services. Moving services to a cluster of former Clarkson University buildings downtown will not be permitted by the Department of Health without a $50 million to $75 million renovation. Besides being too costly to renovate, these buildings have less space for parking than we now have.
Some services can be divided and delivered off site. We have thoroughly researched options for off-site locations for these primarily outpatient and medical office services. CPH has already located some of these divisible services in renovated, re-usable structures. Examples include a medical office in the renovated former Potsdam Village Police station, and outpatient physical therapy services in Clarkson Hall. CPH will continue to explore options for services that are appropriately delivered in sites other than our main campus. Recently, the Hospital purchased the former St. Mary’s school building on Lawrence Avenue in Potsdam. The building is being redeveloped to house, initially, our newest ophthalmologist and our newest OB/GYN, and it will house additional outpatient medical services, pending approval from the NYS Department of Health.
Are more parking lots really necessary? - Back to Top
Comments in neighborhood forums, and comments from neighbors through letters to the editor over a number of years have revealed a community priority: getting cars off the streets that surround the Hospital. To bring parking onto our main campus, and to expand our facilities, we need to pave new parking lots to increase the number of available spaces. An outside consultant completed a parking study that showed a need for an additional 139 spaces over several years. We’ll phase in parking expansion, beginning with about 70 additional spaces.
At the same time, we are committed to environmentally friendly practices. We participate in recycling programs where permitted by NYSDOH regulations, purchase green office and housekeeping products, and use digital formats and telecommunications to save paper and limit travel. We continue to seek commuting alternatives that align with this effort. We purchased 300 trial St. Lawrence County Transit tickets to give away free to our employees. We encourage car pooling. Employees who live in the Village within walking distance are asked to walk: of 38 employees who currently live within a half-mile radius (and who also work primarily at the main campus), 17 report they walk or bike to work in all weather. The remainder works the night shift, and these employees find driving to be a safer option. We require nursing students who come to us for their clinical training to park off-site outside the Village, and we bring them to the Hospital via shuttle.
Why is the Village considering a hospital zone? - Back to Top
Canton-Potsdam Hospital was originally built in the early 1930’s at what was then the edge of the Village of Potsdam. For a time in the mid-to-late nineteen hundreds, the site was a parade ground, with farmers’ fields to our north. When houses sprang up on those fields, the area’s zoning ordinance ignored the Hospital’s existence.
Zones should reflect current and expected future uses. The best zoning practices are those that recognize growth and allow people to understand what kinds of uses are permissible. Zoning of manufacturing, business, and human service organizations ideally helps these vital contributors to a community grow in a managed, planned way.
In proposing a hospital zone to the Village Planning Board, the Potsdam Village Director of Planning and Development is attempting to redress a long-standing zoning problem for the Village’s residents. The new zone allows for managed growth, and removes cars from the Village’s side streets. Although CPH didn’t initiate the proposal for a Hospital zone, we support a rational zoning process, and our plans should be considered in defining the zone’s boundaries and uses. How will the Hospital’s growth affect the Village’s tax base? - Back to Top
The Hospital currently owns 16 house. Five of the properties currently provide housing for difficult-to-recruit Hospital employees and their families.
The Hospital’s President and CEO, David Acker, has pledged from the outset and repeatedly in public forums that he will work with the Village to preserve its tax base. Canton-Potsdam Hospital remains committed to that pledge. Are you removing all the houses you own? - Back to Top
As of June 2009, we own 16 properties surrounding the Hospital. Some of the houses we own are in good shape and will be spruced up to serve as housing for difficult-to-recruit health care workers and their families. We already use some of our houses on Leroy and Waverly streets for that purpose. You may have noticed that the blue house on the corner of Waverly and Cottage now has a fresh coat of paint, and the formerly unpainted, rotting clapboards have been replaced.
We plan to remove three houses on Cottage Street for parking. Drawing on our Board’s analysis, our collaborative work with Village Planning Officials, as well as feedback from our neighbors, the best plan to get cars off the neighborhood streets and allow for growth is to remove the Cottage Street houses.
Our priority is to use attractive landscaping to blend in with the look and feel of the neighborhood, to improve the appearance of the Hospital’s grounds, and to screen Hospital activities from view. We have engaged a landscape architect, who has designed six different screening options. We have also budgeted approximately $250,000 over the next several years for landscaping improvements, starting with screening How does the zoning review process work? - Back to Top
The Village of Potsdam’s Director of Planning and Development has proposed a hospital zone in the Village of Potsdam. The elected officials who are considering his request are following a process encoded in law. The Village Planning Board voted in a special meeting Thursday, March 18, 2009 to revise the zoning language and forward the proposal to the County, and then Village Board for a vote. The revision proposes removing four houses--four houses on Waverly, two of which the Hospital owns--from the H2 zone and leaving them in the existing R2 zone.
In a subsequent meeting of the St. Lawrence County Planning Board in Norfolk on Thursday, April 9th, 2009, the zone was unanimously approved at the County level, and the County Planning Board recommended that the Village strongly reconsider its earlier decision to remove four houses on Waverly from the proposed hospital zone.
At a meeting on June 15th, 2009 the Village Board plans to set a new meeting date for a vote on the zone.
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Canton-Potsdam Hospital
50 Leroy St.
Potsdam, NY 13676
E.J. Noble Medical Building
80 E. Main St.
Canton, NY 13617
