By spring, St. Joseph's Healthcare System of Paterson, N.J., plans to complete a $250 million expansion and renovation project that administrators said would help meet growing demand for inpatient and outpatient care. The construction project, which began in 2008, is upgrading the St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center and St. Joseph's Children's Hospital campus in Paterson and St. Joseph's Wayne Hospital in Wayne, N.J.
The centerpiece of the expansion is a critical care building that St. Joseph's Paterson opened in October. That building includes separate pediatric and adult emergency departments with a total of 88 treatment areas, 12 operating theaters, 56 private patient rooms for critical care patients and a rooftop helipad. Also completed at the St. Joseph's Paterson campus were an ambulatory care center, lobby renovations and cosmetic updates of all patient rooms. In Wayne, St. Joseph's expanded its surgical suites, renovated its critical care unit and enhanced patient rooms. Now, St. Joseph's is finishing nursing unit renovations at its Paterson and Wayne campuses and renovating additional emergency department space in Paterson.
According to St. Joseph's, demand for services had exceeded capacity at that system. Plus, said Sr. Maryanne Campeotto, SC, the system's vice president of mission, over the years, "the needs of the people in our community have become more complex ... (expansion) like this is so necessary to meet the changing needs of the people."