Strong West opens ER on Tuesday in Brockport

BROCKPORT – An emergency room will open Tuesday morning at the former Lakeside Memorial Hospital, the University of Rochester Medicine announced today.

The state Department of Health approved the emergency department at Strong West, the former hospital that closed in April 2013 in Brockport.

The current urgent care center will switch over to become Strong West Emergency at 8 a.m. Tuesday. The long-awaited approval means a return of higher-level, 24-hour emergency care to the Brockport area.

The change will improve emergency health care access for eastern Orleans residents, and will reduce commute for some ambulance crews that have been taking patients into Rochester.

UR Medicine’s Strong Memorial Hospital has worked closely with New York State DOH since last summer, submitting plans to develop an off-campus ED, the health care system said. This unique health care model has been adopted by several other downstate institutions.

Off-campus EDs are designed to offer acute emergency care for patients and are open around the clock, seven days a week. Unlike urgent care centers, these EDs can accept patients brought in by ambulance (urgent care sites, by law, cannot) and are staffed by a physician 24 hours a day.

Because off-campus EDs have no in-patient hospital beds – Strong West will have three short-term observation beds – patients who require more intensive care and hospitalization will be treated and transferred to UR Medicine’s Strong Memorial or Highland Hospital or a hospital the patient chooses.