Courtesy Glens Falls Hospital
By Susan Elise Campbell
Over his 33-year career at Glens Falls Hospital, Paul Scimeca, president and CEO since January 2022, has seen dramatic changes, both at the hospital and in the community.
These changes are shifting more of the hospital’s attention to the needs of seniors and to behavioral transformations among the population in general, according to Scimeca.
“The community we are privileged to care for is aging,” he said. “As people grow older and live longer, we need to focus on chronic disease in a way that continues to evolve with the population and mirrors the needs of the community.”
Within the past three years Glens Falls Hospital developed a state-designated Center of Excellence for Alzheimers Disease and received certification for its Stroke Center, he said. The demand for these health services follows the population curve.
“The C.R. Wood Cancer Center is one of the first projects I worked on when I came to the Hospital more than 30 years ago,” he said. “The center continues to grow as it becomes more successful in identifying, treating and helping individuals of all ages survive cancer.”
Chronic decease and mental health services are of equal priority to the hospital and are equally challenging, according to Scimeca.
“Emergency care has changed significantly over the years,” said Scimeca. “Some conditions have to be treated immediately, so care starts right in the emergency department.”
One of the current priorities, and a personal priority for Scimeca as well, is to renovate and expand the emergency department, since “it was not built for the kind of care that must be delivered today,” he said.
“The facility is currently constrained functionally by the design of the department,” Scimeca said. “The hospital is at the beginning stages of planning for both a slight expansion and a full renovation.”
Along with that, and related to it according to Scimeca, is a plan to grow the behavior health crisis unit at Glens Falls Hospital.
Scimeca said the Hospital is experiencing a greater need for behavior health services among the general population and that those needs have become more pronounced, especially because of the pandemic.
“That unit is full almost every day with adults and adolescents who need crisis care,” he said. “When the mental health unit is full, patients expand into the emergency department and that takes up space for other patients seeking crisis care.”
“We are figuring out the pieces, but most likely there would be a small expansion adjacent to the hospital to increase our capacity,” he said. “Soon we will apply to the state Department of Health for approval on this project.”
The full project would likely begin next year, he said, and the hospital has been working collaboratively with other mental health providers to simultaneously expand services throughout the region.
Speaking to the public perception of the hospital, Scimeca said, “We have a reputation for being here when people need us and sometimes don’t know where to turn. Certainly people have come to rely upon us for cancer care.”
“The C.R. Wood Cancer Center not only offers comprehensive care and education, but also allows people to participate in clinical trials right here in their own community,” said Scimeca.
He said he is “proud of what the hospital has been able to achieve. Not every hospital can do clinical trials.”
Glens Falls Hospital has been working in conjunction with University of Vermont in Burlington but within a year hopes to be recognized as a separate main site for cancer trials, according to Scimeca.
“Because of the breadth and comprehensiveness of our program, we can enroll people to access the trial here without the need for travel or inconvenience,” he said. “We will not need to be a sub-site of another organization.”
Once achieved, the hospital will be able to “expand the number of trials and bring more comprehensive care closer to the community, which is our goal,” said Scimeca.
Like most health care providers in the country, Glens Falls Hospital is facing staffing challenges.
“Although there are many openings we are recruiting for, we are fortunate to have a dedicated staff that allows us to meet the needs of our patients, which fluctuates seasonally with the tourist population,” he said.
Scimeca said some professionals considering retirement postponed until the end of the pandemic because “they wanted to do what they can to help the community and be part of the team helping their friends and neighbors.”
But even separate from and before the issue of the pandemic, Scimeca said there was not enough growth among new staff to replace those who would be retiring.
The hospital has programs including a nurse residency program that takes graduate nurses right out of training and helps them continue in their specialty areas, Scimeca said.
“Generations continue to look to us for their work,” he said. “Glens Falls Hospital is the largest employer in the area by three-fold and we take that responsibility very seriously. The health of the hospital is tied to the health of the community.”
Scimeca said that the hospital’s 2020 affiliation with Albany Medical Center “has been a dream” because it allows them to “better coordinate patient care and to bring physicians and allied health care providers to augment the staff in Glens Falls.”
“We have a culture at the hospital similar to the culture of the region, which is that we are good stewards of the community and we get things done,” he said.