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Southampton Hospital officials expect a highly anticipated merger with Stony Brook University Hospital to be finalized within the next few months.
Robert Chaloner, Southampton Hospital’s president and CEO, said on Tuesday that the state’s regulatory staff has finally signed off on the proposed merger, and now there is only one more step—a court-filing process—before final approval.
“We expect that will go smoothly,” he said. “We are hopeful that, within the next two to three months, we’ll be able to finally consummate the deal.”
The proposed merger would place Southampton Hospital, which eventually intends to build a new facility on the grounds of Stony Brook Southampton in Shinnecock Hills, entirely under Stony Brook’s operating license while still preserving the community aspect of the hospital.
The potential merger has been discussed for more than nine years, much longer than it typically takes for two medical centers to form a partnership. Last month, Mr. Chaloner ventured that the process has taken longer because Stony Brook University Hospital is not a privately run medical center, meaning that state officials are thoroughly reviewing the merger application.
“The benefit of having taken so much time in the approval process [is] that our people have gotten to know and like each other, that we are both working together as a team,” Mr. Chaloner said. “I think that bodes really well for the success of the collaboration of the two hospitals.”
For now, Mr. Chaloner said Southampton Hospital officials are working on opening a cardiac catheterization lab, or cath lab, by this summer in the Southampton Village hospital’s Audrey and Martin Gruss Heart and Stroke Center. Cardiac cath labs allow doctors to place stents in a patient’s cardiovascular system to open blocked passageways and perform other related life-saving procedures that require specific staffing, software and equipment.
The hospital also is working on opening up a new cancer center, Mr. Chaloner said, and a groundbreaking is expected within a month.
on Apr 25, 2017