This fall, North Shore Medical Center (NSMC) will complete the most ambitious piece of a 10-year plan to redesign the health care system on the North Shore and better serve the current and future health needs of the local community. The key aspects of the revitalization include: consolidating Salem and Union hospital-based services into one state-of-the-art facility in Salem, expanding behavioral health / psychiatric facilities, adding private inpatient rooms, expanding outpatient services including emergency, urgent care, primary and specialty care, improving access to health care services across the communities where patients live/work.
Under this plan, all hospital-based medical, surgical and behavioral health services will be combined in one expanded and improved facility in Salem, while keeping the services that patients use most close to home.
A state-of-the-art emergency department, a new inpatient floor of 24 private patient rooms, and a 120-bed behavioral health/psychiatric facility that will serve children, adults and seniors, will open in Salem on the campus of NSMC Salem Hospital. The new Emergency Department will open for patients on November 3, 2019.
The Epstein Center for Behavioral Health, directly aligned with Massachusetts General Hospital, will add 54 new beds to the region for psychiatry and behavioral health services. Expanding behavioral health services helps to meet the overwhelming demand for mental health and addiction treatment, a priority shared by Governor Baker. The Epstein Center will be the largest inpatient mental health service embedded in a general hospital in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, enabling patients to benefit from a range of subspecialists available on site. This addition also serves to relieve overcrowding in NSMC’s emergency department and free up capacity for patients with critical health issues.
With the new emergency department opening in Salem this fall, NSMC will also close the Union Hospital emergency department in Lynn and direct acute emergency patients to Salem at that time.
Less acute emergency (urgent care) patients will continue to be cared for on the Union Campus in a NSMC Urgent Care Center, located in the former Union Emergency Department. The Urgent Care Center will open on November 4, 2019, and will provide convenient, efficient care for less acute injuries and conditions such as cuts, coughs, infections, sprains and so on. The NSMC Urgent Care Center will operate from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week and include x-rays, ultrasound, blood testing and the like. It will remain in this space until it moves into a new 40,000-square-foot medical village in the spring of 2020.
NSMC’s new model of care improves the efficiency of, and access to, quality health care, while reducing costs so that its healthcare services will remain stable and in the community for the long term. The NSMC Salem campus revitalization will make services easier to navigate and increase access to sophisticated technology and specialized clinical expertise for acutely ill patients. nsmc.partners.org
Saturday Sept. 14 North Shore Medical Center hosts a community open house in Salem to celebrate the new facilities.
Tuesday, Oct. 1 The Epstein Center for Behavioral Health opens in Salem for adult patients. Pediatric and geriatric psychiatry patients will move in over the following week.
Monday, Oct. 28 The Pingree Floor of 24 additional private patient rooms opens.
Sunday, Nov. 3 The New NSMC Emergency Department opens in Salem. North Shore Medical Center Union Hospital in Lynn closes.
Monday, Nov. 4 NSMC Urgent Care Center in Lynn opens.
Spring 2020 New Medical Village opens in Lynn.