Phelps Memorial Hospital Center’s new facility features an aquatherapy program, where patients improve strength, flexibility and balance by exercising underwater.

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As it serves Westchester County, N.Y., Phelps Memorial Hospital Center prides itself on “having a broader scope of services than any other community hospital in this region,” President and CEO Keith F. Safian says. Located in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., the nonprofit hospital provides medical, rehabilitation and mental healthcare to residents.

Phelps Memorial opened in 1956 and has grown dramatically since, Safian says. Today, the hospital features 235 beds and employs a staff of more than 1,400. “Phelps is now the 12th-largest non-government employer in Westchester,” he adds.

Additionally, “We have affiliations with the best of the best,” Safian says, explaining that the hospital is part of the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System, and the exclusive Westchester satellite location for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

“We are Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s only location north of New York City,” Safian adds. “It’s a huge convenience for patients in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Fairfield counties who need chemotherapy and radiation.”

Phelps Memorial also has achieved the highest designation awarded by the Joint Commission of Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. “The designation, ‘accreditation,’ means the hospital is in compliance with all standards,” the hospital explains.

Meeting Needs
Although Phelps Memorial is a nonprofit organization, it stays profitable with its strong clinicians and administration, and a strategy of continuous growth, Safian says. “We continue to add programs and services that both meet the community’s healthcare needs and generate revenue,” he says.

With that revenue, “We’re able to reinvest our surpluses the following year in capital acquisitions, facility improvements, program expansions [and] services for the community,” he explains. For instance, Phelps Memorial provides free screenings each year for prostate, oral and skin cancer, which are very important, Safian says.

Expanding Phelps Memorial
Last September, Phelps Memorial opened its new 100,000-square-foot medical services building and a 750-space parking garage. “We have doubled our size,” Safian says, noting that the new building features outpatient hospital programs and private offices for physicians.

Safian says the building also features an aquatherapy program, where patients improve strength, flexibility and balance by exercising underwater – including exercise on an underwater treadmill. The buoyancy of the water, he explains, helps the patients begin their physical therapy before moving on to weight-bearing exercise on land.

Another feature of the building is the Frank and Lisina Hoch Center for Emergency Education, where simulation technologies enhance the skills of emergency medical technicians, firefighters and healthcare providers. The center includes a training room that is designed to look like the interior of an ambulance.

Later this year, Phelps Memorial will open a new 18,000-square-foot emergency department. A predominant feature of the expansion will be the 30 private rooms, Safian says. When a patient comes to the emergency department, he or she will be assigned to a private treatment space and will not need to spend any time in a waiting room.

In that space, “Patients will be registered, stabilized, and treated, right in the same room,” he says. “It is an example of how we’ve taken our financial success and invested in a whole new level of service.”

Comfortable Care
Phelps Memorial concentrates strongly on providing patient-focused care and making them more comfortable, Safian says. For instance, in its endoscopy suite, all of the patients’ private rooms feature sliding glass doors and views of the Hudson River.

In addition, “Each patient has a thermostat, and their own television and telephone,” Safian says. “If the patient wants [their] door open and the curtain closed, [they can]. It gives them and their family the ability to be as comfortable as possible.”

Phelps Memorial also has a program in which hospitality representatives handle patient requests over and above nursing needs, which include such areas as patient comfort, patient concerns, meals and how to use bedside Internet access, Safian says. “It adds a level of patient support that’s really unprecedented.”

Although these Hospitality Services Representatives are not providing medical care, they are focused on making sure the patients are comfortable, Safian explains. “It’s just complete customer service,” he says, noting that the program has earned a positive response at Phelps Memorial.

Making a Difference
Safian has been with Phelps Memorial since 1989, and has worked in hospital administration since he graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1974. He explains that he has found the medical field more fulfilling than a career in marketing or finance. “I really believe I can apply my business skills and make a difference here,” he states.

He asserts a key to the hospital’s success is its staff, which not only shows kindness to its patients, but to each other, as well. “The staff treat each other like gold,” Safian says. From the time they join its staff, new employees are oriented to what it calls its “culture of kindness.” That culture is reinforced regularly through special programs and annual reorientation.

The Phelps medical staff includes a number of physicians who trained at prominent medical centers in Manhattan and chose to practice in Westchester. “We have a broad array of specialists and caring primary care physicians,” Safian says. “There’s excellent care at every level of this hospital.”

Phelps Memorial will continue to grow, Safian predicts. In addition to its emergency department, the hospital plans to expand within its new medical services building, as well as add more practices, programs and services that will allow “increasingly broad scope of patient activity,” he says. “That’s really what our view of the future is.”