Princeton to get satellite unit when hospital exits to Plainsboro

By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
   Community outreach and planning efforts with an eye toward deciding exactly what presence Princeton HealthCare System will maintain in Princeton will commence in a year and a half, according to CEO Barry Rabner.
   Plans have not been completed, but Princeton residents will get what hospital officials have called a satellite location after the planned 2011 opening of Princeton HealthCare System’s new $400 million hospital in Plainsboro.
   The satellite location will provide health education, appointment-making assistance, and referrals among other services, from a location at or near the current Witherspoon Street site, according hospital officials.
   ”We’ll be working with the neighbors and the people who will be using” the satellite facility, said Mr. Rabner, of the planned outreach efforts.
   He described the satellite location as a type of “storefront, 9-to-5 operation,” with bilingual employees. From there, the hospital is planning to provide on-demand transportation services in addition to available mass transit, as an option for anyone who can’t make the three-mile trip over to the new Plainsboro hospital.
   ”It’s for people have no other means,” Mr. Rabner said.
   The on-demand service will be known as the Bristol-Myers Squibb Community Health Center Shuttle, after Princeton HealthCare System received a $6 million grant from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation in late 2007.
   The gift, which will be delivered in four annual $1.5 million installments, is earmarked to support transportation to the new hospital, educational programs at the Princeton satellite location, and a new community health care center at the facility in Plainsboro.
   The makeup of the new community health care center planned for the new Plainsboro facility will also influence whatever comprises the satellite facility, hospital officials said.
   The community health center’s purpose is to provide services to the region’s underinsured and uninsured residents, and it will represent an expansion of services provided at the hospital’s existing clinic, which saw 17,000 visits in 2006.
   Mr. Rabner noted that the new community health center would provide behavioral health services, which the current clinic does not.
   Actual medical treatment and other services will be provided in Plainsboro, so whatever services are provided at the former Princeton site will be coordinated with the new community health care center.
   Keeping actual medical treatment at the new Plainsboro hospital means everyone will “receive the same state-of-the-art, terrific care,” according to Mr. Rabner.
   Maintaining a Princeton HealthCare System presence in the community is going to be important for continued health outreach and education efforts, according to David Henry, Princeton Regional Health Department health officer “The hospital has been a very good public health partner,” Mr. Henry said.
   Princeton health authorities and Princeton HealthCare System have worked together frequently, according to Mr. Henry, who noted such programs as free prostate screenings and others that are only possible through cooperative efforts.