A new agreement with Lenox Hill Hospital will not only bring the North Shore-LIJ Health System into Manhattan for the first time, but it will also increase its presence in Queens.
The agreement between the health system and Lenox Hill Hospital, which was announced in May, makes Lenox Hill the first Manhattan hospital to become part of North Shore-LIJ. However, it is its 15th hospital in the New York metropolitan area.
North Shore-LIJ spokesperson Terry Lynam said that a “fairly large percentage” of Lenox Hills’ patients come from Brooklyn and Queens. Because of this, Lynam said, the health system will be able to expand its market presence in Queens.
“They do have a fairly large community presence in Queens,” Lynam said, adding that the existing presence in Queens “was one of the things that made Lenox Hill particularly attractive to North Shore-LIJ.”
Lenox Hill Hospital, which has 652 beds, treats approximately 325,000 patients each year.
“This is an unprecedented opportunity to build upon Lenox Hill Hospital’s legacy of medical excellence,” said health system Board of Trustees chair Saul B. Katz. “Utilizing North Shore-LIJ’s infrastructure and resources will further strengthen Lenox Hill Hospital’s ability to provide its physicians with access to the full continuum of care for their patients.”
Lynam said that Lenox Hill has a “very stable market position” and a hospital staff and clinical services that have earned a reputation for providing high quality patient service.
This new agreement, Lynam said, will not have an impact on Forest Hills Hospital, which joined the health system in 1995 and has 222 beds. He noted that, before the partnership with Lenox Hill, North Shore-LIJ focused on central and eastern Queens, Staten Island and Long Island. Lenox Hill, he said, primarily serves western Queens.
“The service areas are complimentary and are served by distinct medical staff with very little overlap,” Lynam said. “The addition of Lenox Hill to North Shore-LIJ is not going to have any effect on what we do at Forest Hills.”
Lynam explained that part of the way the health system is structured, each hospital has its own strategic market area in an attempt to make sure one hospital does not infringe on other hospitals.
“In essence, you don’t want our own hospitals to compete with each other so there is some sensitivity to that,” he said.
