Facility Expansions and Patient Experience Enhancements Coming to Maimonides Health
New Kosher Kitchens, NICU and PACU in 2023; New Pediatric Emergency Room to Open in 2024
Maimonides Health (“Maimonides”) is excited to announce a number of enhancements to the patient experience as well as the physical infrastructure of its Medical Center in Boro Park, Brooklyn.
Two beautiful new Kosher kitchens, serving exclusively Glatt Kosher, are scheduled to open on March 28, 2023. All of the kitchenware and appliances will be brand-new, ensuring that they are ready for Passover in adherence with the strictest rules of observance. Patients will enjoy meals that are freshly prepared as opposed to a cook, chill and reheat process.
In addition, Maimonides is in the process of significantly expanding its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (“NICU”), which cares for premature infants and other newborns needing critical care. By the end of 2023, the number of rooms available in the NICU will increase from 31 to 49, with extra space for babies, parents and nursing stations. The Hospital will also be opening a new Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (“PACU”) on the Fourth Floor of the Aron Building in 2023. This will be a major improvement in the physical environment for patients recovering from surgery.
Finally, Maimonides is thrilled to be opening a brand-new Pediatric Emergency Department (“ED”) in 2024. This brand-new ED, over 20,000 square feet, will be Brooklyn’s first stand-alone emergency department dedicated exclusively to caring for children, with its own entrances for both ambulances and walk-in patients. It will allow the Hospital to continue providing dedicated pediatric emergency care in a larger, more comfortable setting for both patients and families. Maimonides currently operates Brooklyn’s only pediatric trauma center and only full-service Children’s Hospital, with over 25 pediatric medical and surgical sub-specialties and over 70,000 pediatric outpatient visits per year. It treats infants, children, and adolescents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with an amazing team of board-certified pediatric physicians, surgeons, nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, and child-life specialists. Its extensive breadth of specialists and experience enable the Hospital to provide the highest quality of care for children.
Consistent with its roots and mission, Maimonides is particularly sensitive to the needs of the Orthodox Jewish community. In addition to the kitchens outlined above, Maimonides accommodates strict Sabbath and Yom Tov observance for families, including: manual entrances to the Hospital; accessible minyonim and religious services in the Hospital’s shul; and a dedicated Bikur Cholim room stocked with supplies that is accessible 24/7 to patients, families and visitors.
Along with on-site Yiddish language assistance and volunteer doulas available around the clock, it is also one of the only hospitals to employ a Rabbi who is a qualified posek, uniquely sensitive to families’ choices concerning ongoing medical treatment for elderly or terminal patients, with the utmost respect for halachic demands.
Maimonides has eased COVID restrictions in accordance with guidance from the New York State Department of Health. Visitors are no longer required to prove their vaccination status or a negative COVID test when accompanying a patient to the hospital, and temperature checks are no longer conducted upon entering the building.