Fairview Hospital is a 25-bed federally designated Critical Access Hospital that’s served Southern Berkshire County for over 110 years. It’s operated out of its current location on Lewis Avenue since the ’20s and merged with county healthcare giant Berkshire Health Systems in the ’80s. The company, which also owns and operates other major regional hospitals like Pittsfield’s Berkshire Medical Center and the recently re-opened North Adams Regional Hospital, is undertaking a $70 million plan to upgrade the facility.
“It's an opportunity for us to modernize our services in areas of surgical services, emergency department, and imaging services to meet the current volume and the projected volume for years to come," President and CEO Darlene Rodowicz told WAMC.
She says the renovation will help address longstanding community demands in the Southern Berkshires.
“We're actually looking at a about a 44,000-square-foot addition to the Fairview campus that will house those services in a two-story building," Rodowicz continued. "So, very exciting news. It's one that we've been working on for a long time, and just to be clear, it will also include an MRI for the South County community as well.”
BHS Vice President and Fairview Hospital Chief Operating Officer Anthony Scibelli says patients should notice a smoother flow at the revamped facility.
“For instance, someone coming in for a day surgery- The current condition now, they enter into the building and are brought to us to our third floor to be prepped for their surgery, and then are transported down to the operating room on our second floor, and then eventually, after they've recovered, they go back to the third floor," he explained. "So, you can see a lot of movement throughout the hospital. And in the new plans, they'll all enter into one area and have their procedure and post recovery all in one suite.”
Rather than scaling the hospital up, Scibelli says the renovations and expansion will allow Fairview to finally catch up with current patient volume.
“In our emergency department, we have eight spaces where we can treat patients," he told WAMC. "Those are- They're tight, they're not perfectly private. In the new space, we'll have up to 12 spaces to treat patients, and they'll all be in private areas with the right sized type room. So, for the fluctuation of patients that come for summer or in the winter for the skiers, I think they'll enter a building and a facility that will be the right size for the type of volume that we're typically used to seeing.”
“Historically, what we've heard is that if you go to our emergency department, especially in the summer, we don't have enough emergency department bays, and you often find us overcrowding into the hallways," said Rodowicz. "So, this plan anticipates a significant increase in the number of emergency department bays as an example. In our surgical areas, we're going to have four rooms that will allow us to do both surgery as well as colonoscopies and endoscopy procedures. So, they'll be kind of multipurpose procedure rooms, but will meet all of the state requirements to be able to be used interchangeably.”
BHS contracted with design firm Erdman on the project. Rodowicz says she expects the additions to complement existing historic building features.
“We're currently doing a lab renovation that's going to happen this year, so that's going to be relocated onto the main floor of the existing building, and that will be the laboratory for the hospital long-term," she said. "And then once the new services, those services move into the new building that we mentioned, we're going to be able to renovate and retrofit one of the floors to be a brand-new inpatient unit on one of those floors. So, we're respecting the old, we're updating it much like we did on North Adams Regional Hospital, in that we were able to keep a lot of the services. It'll take some investment, but it's less costly than putting up a brand-new building.”
Scibelli is optimistic about the investment improving the working experience for Berkshire healthcare professionals.
“Working in a brand-new space will certainly help with our staff recruitment and retention," he told WAMC. "To have a space where you can put things away that are in right-sized rooms- That's all added benefit. And to have the services for all of our imaging modalities, particularly with an MRI, that takes the burden of a clinician to have to think through, how is this patient going to need this service? Now, it's right here on the facilities, right here on the facility. So, that'll help our providers and our clinicians.”
Rodowicz tells WAMC that in a best-case scenario, the project will be complete by early 2027.
BHS is holding community outreach sessions about the plans for Fairview. First, the company will meet privately with the property’s abutters in Great Barrington later this month. An open community meeting is expected to follow on July 22nd.
