One More New York Hospital Set to Close–Out of Money

Long Island College Hospital in downtown Brooklyn appears to be the next hospital in the New York area to close, so there goes more jobs.  Projected numbers say the outlook for the hospitals financials will be around $41 million in the red.  This is one hospital where you could say that any Health IT activity is certainly dead and contrast this with other hospitals who have money with exploding Health IT budgets and will those be eaten alive too in time?    The board of trustees has voted to close the hospital.  Citizens and employees are upset with the fact that the property where the hospital sits could be sold for as much as $500 million so the current owners, SUNY will stand to make a lot of money and the property is already zoned for residential use.  BD



State university officials on Friday voted to close Long Island College Hospital, a money-losing downtown Brooklyn institution whose possible demise has sparked outrage and sadness among workers and community members.

The board of the State University of New York voted unanimously to move forward with closing the hospital. As trustees moved to vote, their voices were drowned out by chants of "postpone the vote" and "shame, shame" from the roughly 50 people in attendance, mostly nurses and hospital workers.

"Overall, the issue here is money. We are about to run out of money," Mr. McCall said.

Mr. Williams said in an interview Thursday that closing the hospital could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to months. SUNY officials will have to submit a closure plan for approval to the state Health Department, which could make modifications. The state agency rarely, however, reverses a hospital's decision to close.

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