Name change is also imminent.
By: David Campbell
The Medical Center at Princeton has determined that a satellite campus somewhere in the Princeton area large enough to accommodate future growth is needed, and plans a name change effective next month.
Hospital President Barry Rabner said Thursday that the hospital’s strategic planning process, which Mr. Rabner launched in August 2002 after taking over as president, has determined that a major outpatient campus is needed to accommodate growth needs.
The outpatient campus would be located in the Princeton area and would be large enough to support relocation of the hospital’s primary inpatient facility on Witherspoon Street as well if needed and financially viable down the road, Mr. Rabner said.
The hospital president stressed, however, that relocation of the main inpatient facility is only one option on the table. He said he is still awaiting input from a financial adviser and a facilities master plan by architect J. Robert Hillier before he makes his recommendations to the hospital board of trustees, which he said he hopes to do at the trustees’ June 23 meeting.
There are currently about 15 sites in the Princeton area between 35 and 180 acres that could host the new campus, he said.
If the hospital did move and sell the Witherspoon property, the sale would likely be with the proviso that the hospital continue to maintain some presence at that location, Mr. Rabner noted.
"We would not completely leave the current site under any circumstances," he said.
At a meeting Thursday with members of the Master Plan Subcommittee of the Princeton Regional Planning Board, Mr. Rabner outlined several "critical objectives" the hospital has arrived at following extensive information-gathering from residents, community leaders, physicians and hospital staff.
Among them is a name change to be announced June 7 as part of a marketing and branding push to raise awareness among the public and doctors of services provided by the hospital and its affiliated units, such as Princeton House and the Merwick Rehabilitation and Sub-Acute Care unit.
The branding is meant in part to underscore the Medical Center’s role as a teaching hospital, and to help people understand the hospital and its units as "a family of services that are intimately related to each other.
"Many people don’t know what we do, they don’t know who we are, they don’t know why they should choose us," Mr. Rabner said. "None of the changes are so dramatic that you won’t recognize who it is."
The hospital president did not disclose what the name will be, but said it does not reflect the sale of the Medical Center to a larger system which he said has not occurred.
Other critical objectives include increasing emergency-room volume from 36,000 to 42,000 visits annually; increasing the current 640-physician staff by 45; and replacing the Merwick facility with a larger and more marketable building, either at the current Bayard Lane site or elsewhere in the Princeton area, Mr. Rabner said.
The hospital also has determined the need to formally establish an affiliate status for teaching and research with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and to increase access to physicians by facilitating doctor contracting with all major managed-care plans.
Mr. Rabner said the hospital has maintained residencies with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and UMDNJ since 1972.
The hospital has determined the need to develop treatment centers in areas such as breast cancer, stroke and vascular care.
In addition, it has cited the need to increase its volume of patient care annually, including an increase of psychiatric patient volume by 740 annual admissions, annual births from 1,636 to 2,300, and inpatient surgery from 2,543 to 3,643, according to a report presented Thursday.
The Medical Center’s primary campus, built in the 1950s, occupies about 7 acres. The hospital employs 2,700 workers. A new hospital built today typically requires a minimum of 35 acres but preferably 50 acres, Mr. Rabner said.
The hospital president said the current site suffers from "acute" parking problems, inadequate space to meet growth needs and problems related to traffic.
The Medical Center aims to increase its outpatient care from 25 to more than 50 percent of the hospital’s services, the hospital president said.
"I really believe we are going to distinguish ourselves through the quality of our care and our clinical outcomes," he said.

