PBMC Health gained site plan approval today for a planned 3,500-square-foot “annex” on Route 58, where it will operate an urgent care and diagnostic imaging facility. The Riverhead Town Planning Board simultaneously approved a 1,945-square-foot addition to the building, to be constructed at a later date.
The new facility will be built in the southeast corner of the Gateway Plaza parking lot. The shopping plaza is currently home to Wal-Mart and Bob’s Furniture.
It will function as a prompt care center, where people who would otherwise go to the hospital’s emergency department can seek treatment for less serious injuries and illnesses.
Ron McManus, chief operating officer of Peconic Bay Health System, said prompt care patients comprise 35-40 percent of emergency department visits. Treating those patients at the annex facility will both free up the emergency department and reduce waiting time for the patients.
“The emergency department currently sees 33,000 to 36,000 visits per year,” McManus told board members during a Dec. 18 public hearing. “Wait time can sometimes be six to nine hours because of the volume.”
PBMC recently announced a planned merger with North Shore-LIJ. Since North Shore-LIJ — which on Monday announced a change of name to Northwell Heath — plans to establish a cardiac catheterization lab and a trauma care center on the Riverhead campus, emergency department visits are expected to increase, McManus said.
The new 20-bed facility will have imaging systems and a small on-site laboratory — everything generally needed to treat patients in need of prompt, aka urgent, care services. The phase-two addition will nearly double the patient capacity of the annex, adding another 15 beds.
There won’t be any overnight stays or inpatient admissions at the new location, McManus said.
Planning board member Stan Carey, who during the public hearing on the application voiced concerns about the location, citing traffic issues on the busy county road, abstained from today’s 4-0 vote of approval.
McManus said construction on the new facility will begin as soon as building permits are approved.
The owners of Lerner Properties, which owns Gateway Plaza, is a hospital benefactor, PBMC Health president and CEO Andrew Mitchell told the planning board last year.
The developer is purchasing 3.395 development rights to add the extra density to the already-approved site plan.
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