Tulane Medical Center moves patients, staff to East Jefferson Hospital in LCMC merger
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Expansions at East Jefferson General Hospital bring the end of an era to downtown New Orleans’ Tulane Medical Center.
It’s the next chapter in the ongoing merger plan.
LCMC acquired Lakeview Regional in Mandeville, Lakeside Hospital in Metairie, and the downtown Tulane Medical Center campus.
Mel Lagarde, chief operating officer at LCMC, says the $220 million investment grows clinical services in Metairie while keeping the doors open to emergency medical treatment downtown.
“Major portions of East Jefferson need to be renovated. Major portions of East Jefferson need to be expanded. The emergency room, for instance, needed to be expanded,” Lagarde said. “The number of ORs needed to be expanded, the number of cath labs, MRIs and CTs that are necessary for an operation of not only the East Jefferson volume but the Tulane volume of patients that are now going to coexist at East Jefferson.”
LCMC now helps to train the next generation of health care providers from two of the top medical schools in the state: LSU, based at University Medical Center, and Tulane, now relocated to East Jeff.
“It’s one of the things that makes this unique, to have both not just one, of those medical schools as part of our system,” Lagarde told Fox 8.
In the fall, Tulane’s first class of nursing program students will call the Tulane Medical Center building home.
“This is not some consolidation to try and cut, trim costs, or things like that,” Lagarde said. “We need all of them. We actually need more.”
Lagarde says 98% of the hospital staff stayed on board with the move, and the only employees that did not choose to remain with LCMC did so for “personal reasons.”
In addition to the new patients and providers, LCMC says East Jefferson hospital will grow by 37 new critical care units, 15 new clinics, and 8 new operating rooms.
The following changes are effective as of Monday (Jan. 15):
Which clinical services will remain downtown?
- Ophthalmology clinic
- Dermatology clinic
- Behavioral Health Clinic
- Multispecialty Clinic
These clinics will remain in their current locations after the hospital closes.
Which ones will be going to Metairie?
- Dermatology will be moving to Lakeside Hospital in April 2024
- Ophthalmology (eye care) will move to East Jefferson General Hospital in April 2024
For more information on where to find your provider, visit LCMCHealth.org.
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