Keith Safian Celebrates 20 Years as President and CEO of Phelps Hospital

Phelps is one of very few profitable hospitals in New York State, operating in the black in all but one of the last 20 years.  Since 1989 when Safian was hired, the operating budget has increased from $40 million to $188 million in 2009.

 

Over the same time period, the hospital staff has grown from 800 employees to 1,540, making Phelps the 8th largest employer in Westchester County. The number of physicians on staff at the hospital has grown from 189 in 1989 to 450 in 2009. Phelps is one of the few hospitals in the region that is continuing to award merit increases to employees despite the economic downturn.

 

Last year, Phelps concluded a highly successful five-year capital campaign which raised $20 million from private philanthropic sources, twice the initial goal. Much of that money was used to fund the construction of a new 18,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art emergency department, which opened in 2008.  

 

In addition to the new emergency department, another key expansion that has occurred on Safian’s watch is a 100,000 square-foot medical services building which opened in 2007. The five-story facility houses an emergency training center, a wound healing center and an infusion center. The building is also home to Phelps’ extensive outpatient rehabilitation services, including the only aquatherapy pool in Westchester located in a community hospital.

 

Next to the medical services building now stands a five-story, 750-space parking garage that has made visiting the hospital easy. Under Safian’s direction, Phelps maintains a policy of free parking for all, unlike many hospitals in the area that have instituted parking fees. Taken altogether, these expansions have doubled the hospital’s square footage.

 

Within the past several years, Phelps has invested in expanding its pediatric services. The new emergency department features the Thomas E. and Alice Marie Hales Pediatric and Adolescent Center, and the hospital recently opened a newly designed six-bed pediatric unit and a special care nursery for infants born as early as 34 weeks. A pediatric hospitalist works with private pediatricians to oversee the care of pediatric patients who are hospitalized. In addition, a primary care pediatric practice and several pediatric specialist groups have moved their offices onto the Phelps campus.

 

Phelps also entered an affiliation with New York Medical College whereby second-year medical students are now receiving clinical training at the hospital. The agreement covers undergraduate medical education in pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, primary care and clinical skills, and graduate medical education in pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology. 

 

Safian initiated an unprecedented affiliation with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in 1995, resulting in Phelps becoming the first non-Manhattan location at which MSKCC provides Radiation Therapy and Medical Oncology. On Safian’s watch, Phelps also became the first Westchester County affiliate of Mount Sinai Hospital and joined the four-hospital HealthStar/Stellaris Network.

 

 A key business decision made during Safian’s tenure was the leasing of 21 acres of the 69-acre campus to The Kendal Corporation for the building of Kendal on Hudson, a not-for-profit continuing care retirement community that now houses 320 senior adults. 

 

Under Safian’s direction, Phelps and its Stellaris partner hospitals have been at the forefront of information technology, having installed a hospital information system that allows physicians to enter patient orders electronically and staff to review and update computerized records at the patient’s bedside.  Phelps has also improved patient care by installing a picture archiving and communication system (PACS) that captures, stores, distributes and displays radiologic images. Patients’ medications are electronically verified before each dose is administered.

 

Keith Safian takes a very systematic and strategic approach to hospital management, having received two BS degrees in engineering from the University at Buffalo (SUNY). He then got an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and began his career in health care administration.

 

Safian has been active in a number of national, state and regional organizations whose objective is to improve the delivery of healthcare. He was a member of the American Hospital Association Task Force on Fragmentation of the Delivery System, participated in The Joint Commission’s Roundtable on the Nursing Shortage, and recently presented at the National Patient Safety Foundation Congress in Washington, DC.

 

For more information on Phelps Memorial Hospital, go to www.phelpshospital.org.