Berger Commission — one year out
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- November
- 30
The state Health Department just released a five-page spreadsheet on how hospitals and nursing facilities around New York are progressing in terms of complying with the December 2006 health-care downsizing report by the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century—a.k.a. the Berger Commission. The commission, whose recommendations became law on Jan. 1, called for nearly 50 hospitals to be restructured, nine hospitals to close and about 3,000 nursing home beds to be shut down.
“Implementing the Berger Commission’s recommendations is critical to making health care in New York more efficient, affordable and patient focused,” Gov. Eliot Spitzer said in a statement. “We are already seeing tremendous progress with respect to implementation and beginning to feel the transformative effects.”
The Health Department highlighted some success stories:
—Three of nine hospitals slated for closure shut down ahead of schedule, including two in Manhattan and one in Schenectady.
—Kingston Hospital and Benedictine Hospital in Ulster County reached a joint governance agreement.
—The Kaleida Health System and Erie County Medical Center developed a unified governance structure, as did Crouse Hospital and SUNY Upstate Medical University in Onondaga County.
—Of several long-term care centers ordered to downsize, Mount View Health Facility in Niagara County is planning to close its 172 beds before the end of the year and Taylor Care Center in Westchester County is on target to shut down 140 beds.
Four facilities that were mandated to explore affiliation agreements decided they were not feasible at this time, but they have identified initiative they will pursue jointly. The hospitals are Arnot Ogden Medical Center and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chemung County, and St. Mary’s Hospital and Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center in Niagara County.
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on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 2:08 pm by Cara Matthews.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
