Patti Singer

@PattiSingerRoc

New seven-story building will include 108 private rooms for intensive or medical/surgical care.

RGH still will have 528 beds, but all will be in private rooms.

Price tag listed at $253.6 million, and RGH will finance $151M through bonds.

Construction expected to run from May 2017 to Aug. 30, 2022.

Construction is scheduled to start within weeks on a seven-story building that will turn Rochester General Hospital from an aging facility to one that meets 21st-century expectations of patients and staff.

“We have a 60-year-old facility that we’re bringing current,” said Don DeFrees, vice president of operations in the health services division of the parent Rochester Regional Health.

While renovations and expansions have been made over the past few decades, none are on the scale of the $253.6 million Sands-Constellation Center for Critical Care. The building will front Portland Avenue and be the new face of Rochester General. Inside will be 108 private rooms, 20 operating rooms and more space for other services.

Rochester General is the flagship among the five hospitals in Rochester Regional Health. RGH has 528 beds, and on a majority of days all are occupied. From April 2016 through March 2017, the hospital admitted 42,199 patients.

The critical care center will be built on what now is the front lawn of the campus and be connected to the existing structure. Construction is expected to take five years, with the last two years primarily being interior work.

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More: Rochester General getting closer to new 7-story building

Because the building is going up on empty space, DeFrees said patients or visitors should experience minimal disruption to their routines. Visitors will notice a new surgical waiting area in the original building, down the hall in the old main lobby.

That entrance also will close, but DeFrees said most people already come and go through the Polisseni Pavilion that is adjacent to the Portland Avenue parking garage.

“Normally when I do construction in a hospital, I have to move people out of the way, find a spot for them and then renovate there,” DeFrees said. “I don’t have to do any of that. It’s a brand new build.”

The construction zone is being fenced off and signs are going up in in the hospital. Some employees have been directed to different parking lots, and the employee drop-off spot was moved to the back of the hospital. The Twig Cafe closed, and DeFrees said the hospital has brought in food trucks and made a food kiosk in the back of the hospital.

Rochester General still needs to submit some architectural drawings to the state Department of Health, which DeFrees said should be done in July. But the hospital has permission to begin the site work and start on the exterior.

Rochester General opened as Northside Hospital in 1956.

“Technology and the way health care is delivered has changed dramatically since then,” said Albert Blankley, director of research and analytics of Common Ground Health. The regional health planner, formerly known as Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency, recommended the project for state approval.

“Older operating rooms don’t have the square footage to hold all the equipment that is needed for surgery these days,” he said.

Documents from the state health department describe the expansion and renovation as providing “significant and necessary improvements to address aged and obsolete facilities in both its inpatient and surgical program.”

Blankley said the cost of the project is not exorbitant, and that patients don't see a change in their price for care based on these types of capital investments. "The amounts paid by insurance companies, including Medicare, are calculated separate from these efforts," he wrote in a follow-up email. Infrastructure improvement is not a billable service, however the total cost of providing care to patients would include this work in the grand scheme. Capital investments should be weighed against gained efficiencies from updating infrastructure to better align with current best practices."

Jim Redmond, spokesman for Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, wrote in an email that the effect on hospital charges can be difficult to predict.

"Hospitals plan for these types of expenses over many years, depreciating existing physical plant and raising capital for new buildings and equipment, and may have already baked in charge increases over a period of years and well before opening a new building," he wrote. "Our contracts set a negotiated price for those services, protecting consumers from large swings that can arise from increased charges.



Redmond wrote that community planning and the state process called certificate of need ensure that the health care system can meet needs without unnecessary investments.

Private rooms now standard

Private rooms may have been a luxury years ago, but now they are seen as standard. Blankley said single rooms help hospitals manage patient loads by not having to match roommates by gender. Single rooms also help hospitals control infectious disease and they help protect personal health information.

“In double-occupancy rooms, there are limited barriers between patients and should there be sensitive information, it can be hard to have this conversation between physician and patient,” he said. Once the new building is completed, all patient rooms in the original structure also will become single-occupancy.

In recent years, major Rochester-area hospitals have had makeovers.

► In 2016, UR Medicine completed a $28 million, two-story addition at Highland Hospital with six new operating rooms and a 26-bed observation unit.

► In 2015, UR Medicine completed the $145 million, eight-story Golisano Children’s Hospital.

► In 2014, Unity completed a $180 million expansion that included larger, all-private rooms and the Charles J. August Joint Replacement Center and Golisano Restorative Neurology & Rehabilitation Center. At the time, Unity was independent. It now is part of Rochester Regional Health.

But the trend isn’t limited to larger facilities.

Nicholas H. Noyes Memorial in Dansville has built a new emergency department and added radiation oncology.Clifton Springs Hospital and Clinic, which is part of Rochester Regional Health, has plans for a $32 million project.

DeFrees said residents in the 14621 neighborhood have been involved in the RGH project, from recommending where to place the bus stop on Portland Avenue to offering opinions on the landscaping.

“I’ve worked here 30 years,” he said. “I’ve never been more excited about a project, particularly for our community, our patients, our staff. Everyone is engaged in it.”

PSINGER@Gannett.com