New Hospital Planned on Stony Brook Southampton Campus

Southampton Hospital will soon enter into a philanthropic campaign to build a new 125-bed facility at Stony Brook University's Southampton campus under a tentative agreement that will put the hospital under Stony Brook University Medical Center's state operating license.

The new facility will replace the hospital's current home in Southampton Village on Meeting House Lane, which opened in 1909. The two hospitals have had an affiliation since 2008, but the proposed agreement puts Southampton Hospital in the Stony Brook Medicine healthcare system.

Kenneth Kaushansky, M.D., the dean of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine, said that the closer ties will help both hospitals step up their level of care. "It also helps both facilities prepare for healthcare reform by cultivating a broader, stronger network of hospitals and healthcare providers to improve efficiency, control costs and better coordinate care across Suffolk County,” Kaushansky is quoted as saying in a joint statement from the hospitals.

Southampton Hospital President Robert Chaloner also lauded the news.

"It will create tremendous potential to build new facilities, create new healthcare job opportunities and expand clinical services on the South Fork, and at the same time help Stony Brook build a strong Suffolk County-based health system and advance its regional educational and clinical mission,” Chaloner said.

Southampton Hospital is slated to lead the fundraising campaign for the new facility at Stony Brook Southampton, where the hospitals say there will be expanded educational opportunities and the potential for more health care services, jobs and economic development on the East End.

"Southampton Hospital can provide a valuable teaching and research environment for Stony Brook University students, contributing highly trained healthcare professionals to meet the East End’s needs as the population grows and ages,” said Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D.

New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr., whose district includes the South Fork, said that a new facility at Stony Brook Southampton will be another building block toward in revitalizing the campus. "Together with a growing Arts program, the new $10 million Marine Sciences facility, and the establishment of the Peconic Institute, a new hospital would be a major step towards having the Southampton campus reach its educational potential," he said.

The plans were announced in a statement to the media late Sunday night, and they will be formally unveiled in Southampton Monday morning.

The hospitals will now enter into a "due diligence phase," exchanging financial, business and legal information, and before the deal can be finalized, various state regulatory and legislative authorities need to give their approval, as well as the Southampton Hospital Board of Trustees, according to the statement.

Under the plan, Southampton Hospital employees would remain private sector employees, and the joint statement says that they would retain their collective bargaining rights.