Marshall Has Plan For Healthcare

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall released a vision for &#8220a comprehensive and sustainable healthcare delivery system” in the borough that includes establishing it as its own health region, adding more health care facilities, bringing more specialized doctors to the area and creating a health care task force.
Following the creation of the Commission on Health Care Facilities, Marshall decided to develop such a vision and employed the firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an analysis.
&#8220I decided early on in the process that I didn't want to be told what was best for Queens,” Marshall said. &#8220I believe that those of us who have invested ourselves in this borough, both professionally and personally, have the right to participate in the process.”
The key findings of the study showed that Queens does not have enough hospital beds and that about one third of residents are leaving the borough to get health care because of &#8220gaps” in service. Also, Marshall admitted that &#8220in its current state, our borough's health care delivery system is not financially sustainable.”
Marshall has developed six steps that she said are necessary in improving the health care system in Queens. First of all, she said that Queens must be designated its own health region by the State Department of Health.
&#8220This would make it possible for health care providers within the borough to expand services and successfully obtain certification for new services,” Marshall explained.
The second and third steps of Marshall's vision would be to build a new comprehensive hospital in the Rockaways as well as a new comprehensive hospital and ambulatory care center in Western Queens.
Citing the one amount of residents who leave the borough for health care, Marshall said that Queens needs more specialty doctors.
&#8220Specialty physicians must be imported to Queens rather than continuing to export Queens patients out of the borough,” she said. &#8220This can be accomplished through affiliations with specialty hospitals.”
Also, Marshall wants to create a clinical campus for The Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at Queens Hospital Center.
Finally, Marshall said she will form a health care task force, which will be made of up health care leaders in Queens.
&#8220My task force will provide ongoing dialogue and planning to fulfill my vision of a comprehensive, sustainable health care delivery system in Queens,” Marshall said. She continued, &#8220I know I have outlined a quite challenging agenda, but I know that with this united force behind me, we can make it happen.”