$30m expansion planned for Beth Israel's Needham campus
Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital Needham says it will proceed with a $30 million expansion plan late this year to increase the hospital's capacity and improve its emergency and radiology departments.
The project highlights a financial turnaround that has taken the suburban hospital from losses of $1.9 million in 2002 to an anticipated profit of $850,000 in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
"Over the past few years, we've brought in better doctors and better technology," said Jeffrey H. Liebman , hospital chief executive. "To keep those doctors, we have to provide them with a better place to work."
Liebman said the hospital, formerly Glover Memorial, has thrived as a branch of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Boston by attracting top-flight doctors and providing academic-center levels of care at a lower cost in a convenient location.
Emergency room visits at the Needham hospital have increased from 10,300 in 2002 to 12,700 last year, and outpatient visits during that time increased from about 70,000 to more than 97,000.
But the emergency department is now operating above its planned capacity, and because 90 percent of beds are full during the week, growth in inpatient visits is limited, Liebman said. He said the hospital hopes to begin construction in December and complete the upgrade in April 2009.
The expansion will include at least 20 single-bed private rooms, and will also include a magnetic resonance imaging device, or MRI, so the hospital can perform the lucrative procedures that it now refers to an outside service.
The hospital plans to raise $5 million from donors in area communities and will receive $7 million from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The remainder will come from profits and funds raised from a bond offering.
The fund-raising effort kicked off Tuesday night at Sunny Hill Horse Farm in Needham, home of Howard "Woody" Tanger, who runs two radio stations in Hartford and owns the classical music website, Beethoven.com.
"The demand at Beth Israel Deaconess Needham vastly outstrips the existing facility," he said.
The project will also boost the Needham hospital's contribution to its parent organization.
The Needham facility this year will refer about 1,000 patients to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in the Longwood Medical Area. It's a model that has worked for many academic hospitals that have suburban affiliates, said Ellen Lutch Bender , president of Bender Strategies LLC, a healthcare consulting firm in Boston.
"Downtown academics need to have vigorous relationships with community hospitals that can provide them with a stream of patients," said Bender. "At the same time, patients want to stay in their communities, and a model like this works because the tertiary facility refers patients back to its community partner after they are stabilized."
Marc Bard , chief executive of the Bard Group, a hospital consulting firm in Newton, said such an arrangement enables hospitals like Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to use their city facilities for the most complex and lucrative procedures.
"This will expand the virtual capacity of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center by decanting the less seriously ill patients out to the Needham campus and allow them to use the more intensive tertiary services of Beth Israel to their best advantage," Bard said.
Jeffrey Krasner can be reached at krasner@globe.com. 
