New Yorks' Southampton Hospital is planning a new facility as part of a larger movement to improve medical services for the Hamptons, according to an article on the Dan's Papers website.
The community hospital is working toward merging with Stony Brook University Hospital to enable the move to the college campus and to cut costs and improve the breadth of medical care offered.
Southampton Hospital has been an affiliate of Stony Brook since 2008.
In October 2012, Southampton Hospital’s board and the State University of New York board, which oversees Stony Brook University, signed a letter of intent to go beyond a simple affiliation and fully merge.
The deal will include Stony Brook setting aside space at the 82-acre Southampton campus for the new hospital building.
Though Southampton Hospital is licensed for 125 beds, that is more than it currently requires and more than hospital officials anticipate needing in the coming years. The tentative plan for the new hospital is for between 80 and 100 beds.
Rather than having two patients to a room, like most rooms in the existing hospital, the plan calls for one bed to a room, to provide patient privacy, with some oversized rooms that may be doubled up with beds when demand peaks.