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SCHENECTADY
Sunnyview to expand in consolidation
Northeast to reshape Eddy Cohoes
BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter

   Scores of registered nurses and physical and occupational therapists will descend on the city next fall when Northeast Health consolidates its Eddy Cohoes Rehabilitation Center into Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital.
   As Northeast prepares to overhaul its nursing home and rehabilitation centers at the former Cohoes Memorial Hospital, officials at the Troy-based medical facility network have opted not to keep Eddy Cohoes operating there. Instead, Sunnyview, which merged with Northeast in January, will take on much of the Cohoes facility’s rehabilitation workload.
   In March, Northeast announced a $41 million plan to turn the dormlike Eddy Cohoes and the Eddy-Ford Nursing Home into a series of small residential-style homes. On the Cohoes campus, Northeast will establish 16 “green houses” with rooms for 12 elderly residents, each of whom will have access to a private bedroom, bathrooms and common room. The original plans called for a rehabilitation center in Cohoes.
   The Cohoes green houses will be the first of their kind in the state.
   Subsequent draft plans for the complex showed there was not enough room on the approximately eight-acre campus for a small rehabilitation center. That lack of space, coupled with more stringent Medicare reimbursement rules for such facilities and the unused capacity at the 104-bed Sunnyview, led Northeast officials to the consolidation merger, said The Eddy Chief Executive Officer Jo Ann Costantino.
   “It made better sense in terms of space. It made better sense fi - nancially. We don’t think we’ll have any problems with capacity at Sunnyview,” Costantino said.
   When Northeast starts razing Eddy Cohoes in October to make way for the green houses, fewer than 100 workers in Cohoes will be transferred to Sunnyview, which is near Ellis Hospital on Belmont Avenue. Some of those employees might opt to work at other facilities within Northeast’s network, which also includes Samaritan Hospital in Troy and Albany Memorial Hospital. As of October 2006, Sunnyview had 620 employees. As a result of restructuring from the merger, about 10 Sunnyview billing department workers are being transferred to Albany Memorial and a handful of information technology staffers have been sent to Samaritan, said Sunnyview CEO Edward “Chip” Eisenman.
   “While change can be hard and transfers can be difficult, we believe it will be a win-win for the communities we serve,” said Costantino.
   At its Cohoes campus, Northeast has 177 beds and 348 workers. A majority of those beds and employees will remain in Cohoes for the green houses. Only about 37 of the Eddy Cohoes’ beds will go to Sunnyview. The redeveloped Cohoes campus will feature 192 beds.
   The Eddy Cohoes consolidation will give Northeast an even larger presence in Schenectady, where it has operated the Eddy SeniorCare long-term care management program on State Street.