Learn How Hospital Expansion Can Benefit New York's Patients And Staff At Bisnow's June 25 Event

For many hospitals, the rapid advancement of treatments and technologies has spurred the need to evaluate whether their buildings are flexible enough to keep up with the sector’s continuous innovation. 

While some hospitals may increase their footprint by constructing a new facility, others may look to expand existing spaces to accommodate new technologies and optimize patient care.

Architecture and engineering firm EwingCole’s healthcare practice partners with healthcare systems to enhance their environments to support emerging technologies and long-term strategic growth as well as meet the needs of patients and staff.

EwingCole principal Michael Hoak is representing the firm at Bisnow’s New York Healthcare Real Estate Conference on June 25. He will be on a panel discussing hospital expansions in New York.

Click here to register and purchase tickets.

Bisnow spoke with Hoak about what is driving expansion in the healthcare sector, how to plan for expansion while accommodating spaces that need to stay operational and how EwingCole took a future-oriented design approach to two New York-based projects.

Bisnow: What are some reasons healthcare facilities may undergo expansion? 

Hoak: Alongside accommodating their programs’ growth and increasing patient volumes, healthcare facilities are looking to right-size and modernize existing spaces. Our clients often seek our expertise to align their facilities with current building codes and best practices so that their environments can support contemporary models of care.

For example, this can be seen in both outpatient and inpatient settings. Exam rooms are being expanded from legacy sizes of approximately 85 SF to the current industry standard of 120 SF, allowing for both the exam and consultation to take place in the same room. Inpatient bedrooms are undergoing conversion from double patient rooms to single patient rooms often capable of accommodating intensive care unit-level care and bedside procedures. This approach supports a patient-centered model by enabling care to be brought directly to the patient rather than requiring the patient to navigate the facility.

Bisnow: What role does healthcare technology play in driving change? 

Hoak: It plays an increasingly central role in healthcare delivery. This often fuels the need to expand spaces — such as operating rooms to accommodate advanced equipment like da Vinci robots — or integrate hybrid ORs with in-room imaging capabilities. 

While traditional operating rooms may be around 400 SF, hybrid ORs typically require up to 1K SF, which shows the substantial amount of space needed to accommodate modern surgical technology. As technology continues to evolve, we collaborate with our clients to understand its impact on space.

Bisnow: What do architects and designers need to consider when designing an expansion?

Hoak: Healthcare operates around the clock, with little to no downtime except in certain ambulatory care settings. As a result, careful planning is essential to ensure that critical areas such as operating rooms and patient spaces remain functional during construction.

Understanding how people use clinical spaces — when they are occupied, when procedures are scheduled and when limited access may be possible —  is vital for identifying the windows of opportunity for construction work. Just as important is ensuring that adjacent areas continue to operate without disruption.

It’s crucial to have a comprehensive construction phasing plan and a detailed strategy for maintaining continued operations in surrounding spaces. While such planning may add time and cost to a project, it helps with providing healthcare uninterrupted and creating a streamlined user experience.

Both contractors and construction managers must fully understand and align with the phasing strategy. This ensures that the project budget accurately reflects costs related to extended schedules or after-hours work.

Bisnow: Can you share some details of EwingCole’s work on Northwell Health’s South Shore University Hospital Pavilion in Bay Shore, New York?

Hoak: The project’s main objective was to expand the hospital’s capacity and introduce modern clinical facilities. This includes adding approximately 90 universal care inpatient rooms; 10 operating rooms, two of which are hybrid ORs; dedicated pre-operative and recovery areas; and a suite for endoscopy procedures.

In addition to complementing the clinical expansion, the project also reimagines the hospital’s public-facing spaces. Key services such as the main lobby, registration, retail pharmacy and café will be relocated to a new first-floor lobby featuring a double-height lobby and lounge area. This welcoming, hospitality-forward entrance is designed to enhance the patient experience and improve access and drop-off efficiency.

To support this relocation, it was critical to maintain seamless connectivity between the new pavilion and the existing hospital. Our master-planning approach focused on creating integrated but distinct circulation for patients, staff and services to ensure continuity across the entire campus.

We are also undertaking a separate but interconnected project to establish a critical junction between the new pavilion and the existing hospital to reinforce continued operational efficiency. This connector building will serve as a centralized hub for back-of-house functions to streamline support services and create a more holistic campus.

Bisnow: Regarding another EwingCole project, how will the Northwell Health Victoria and Lloyd Goldman Health Care Pavilion meet healthcare needs in Manhattan?

Hoak: This project was driven by the need to accommodate the growth of multiple clinical practices that had exceeded their existing space. By bringing together more than 12 service lines in one centralized location, the project will help providers deliver care and help patients access services across New York.

A key planning principle was modularity and flexibility. The building adopted a standardized approach to the design of exam rooms, staff areas and offices — allowing the space to adapt over time to shifting clinical demands. As service line volumes fluctuate, this consistent layout helps practices scale up or down without requiring disruptive renovations or changes to the core infrastructure — particularly the exam rooms and offices.

We partnered closely with the client to design the clinical floors, leading detailed user engagement sessions and mock-ups with care teams to ensure the final layout supported the workflows and functional needs of multiple specialties.

Ultimately, this project is a strong example of how healthcare systems can modernize and future-proof their facilities to meet the evolving needs of patients.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to learn more about hospital expansions at Bisnow’s New York Healthcare Real Estate Conference on June 25.

This article was produced in collaboration between Studio B and EwingCole. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.