PR contact: Rob Seman
973-660-3145EmailProject adds major enhancements to maternity, neuroscience, cardiology and critical care, with safeguards inspired by pandemic learnings
SUMMIT, NJ – JANUARY 17, 2025 – Overlook Medical Center, part of Atlantic Health System, on Thursday, January 16, 2025, marked the completion of the East Building, a 3-story expansion to the hospital campus that houses new and updated space for vital specialties.
The East Building represents a major expansion to the hospital as part of the ongoing Overlook Ahead project, a plan to extensively transform and enhance the Overlook Medical Center campus. The expansion provides new, updated, state-of-the art spaces for maternity care, cardiology and critical care and neuroscience.
“This building, and most importantly the care that will be provided here, truly embodies our vision for the future of acute care,” said Stephanie Schwartz, President of Overlook Medical Center and Senior Vice President, Atlantic Health System. “It is no secret that health care is changing fast. We need to stay ahead of the curve, to continue to provide the best care to our community and meet the needs of our region. The advancements in this new space will complement the physicians, nurses and team members who deliver care and will have a profound impact on the patient and family experience and on the team member and physician experience.”
The 78,000 square foot, expansion, split between three floors, involved complete renovation of an existing 42,000 square-foot, two-story section of the hospital and adding a complete 8th floor on top of the existing building while also creating a three-story addition at the end of the building. In addition, Overlook enlarged the bridge connecting to the main hospital and added a dedicated patient transport elevator tower.
What’s inside
The East Building includes:
- A new post-partum unit, named the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey Newborn and Family Care Unit, located on the 6th Floor. In addition to a renovated labor and delivery unit that was opened in 2024, these enhancements to the Frank and Mimi Walsh Maternity Center demonstrate Overlook’s continued commitment to providing outstanding family-centered care. The expanded space features new cesarean-section operating rooms, birthing suites, and all-private postpartum rooms with enhanced proximity to a renovated NICU. The new space will also include the Summit Foundation Nursery. Redesigned for maximum efficiency and collaboration of the maternity care team, the unit will be poised to welcome future generations with the kind of safe and soothing environment so essential to an extraordinary patient experience.
- The FM Kirby Foundation Neuroscience Center, a new neuroscience “super-unit,” that will include the Jeneil B. Reeves Neuro ICU on the 7th Floor. The redesigned inpatient unit will bring together the entire neuroscience team on one floor, with all private patient rooms to ensure comfort and support from loved ones. The neuro super unit includes an enlarged Neuro Intensive Care Unit with rooms designed to care for acute stroke and post-operative spine and brain tumor patients. The unit also includes a new epilepsy monitoring unit to provide timely 24/7 clinical responses to patients with seizure disorders. Dedicated neurosurgical operating rooms will feature state-of-the-art technology to handle the most complex vascular, brain tumor, and skull base procedures. New outpatient space will be home to Overlook’s centers of excellence, bringing together our neurologists and neurosurgeons and their multi-disciplinary teams to provide comprehensive care coordinated by our patient navigators.
- The Kevin Bell, MD Critical Care Unit on the 8th Floor will include newly designed private rooms that will be larger and more technology-enabled to provide for the 24-hour care needed by our sickest patients whose conditions are not stable enough for transfer to a regular hospital room. The enhanced space will allow our ICU and CCU health care providers to deliver extraordinary care in a thoughtfully designed environment.
- The Wilf Family Cardiology Center on the 8th floor is a new state-of-the-art cardiology unit with single rooms. This unit will allow Overlook to offer intensive, intermediate, and/or acute care without moving patients to different units, thereby enhancing their safety and comfort. In addition, the new Hartman Satellite Caregivers Center, an extension of The Thomas Glasser Caregivers Center, will foster an improved healing environment for both patients and families.
Additional features include:
- A renovated NICU to support our youngest patients
- A satellite pharmacy to streamline care
- A dedicated patient transport system for efficient OR and imaging access
- A small office area and elevator lobby on the 5th floor as well and a new mechanical chiller plant below the building addition
Building a better future
Design for the building began in 2019, but underwent changes when construction went on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This allowed Overlook’s architects to revise the plans and incorporate learnings from the pandemic before breaking ground in November 2022.
The East Building’s design was based on providing modernized space for the future of health care, and also providing comfort to patients and loved ones, while using advancements developed in recent years to safeguard those in the building.
“The building was designed with the thought of another pandemic in mind,” said Andrew Restivo, project manager for the department of construction for Atlantic Health System.
“The building has a robust mechanical system that has the ability to use 100% outside air with all necessary HEPA filtration to ensure no airborne illnesses will recirculate back into the facility. Each critical care room has the necessary capability to double up if capacity during a potential pandemic ever again was needed,” Restivo said. “Each room also has an overhead boom, in the event a care provider needs to move 360 degrees around a patient, the patient can be moved into the center of the room with no wires or tubing on the floor. In addition, our critical care rooms are angled to provide the care team with the best possible visibility of all their patients from their workstations. Our Newborn and Family Care unit has extremely large, hotel-style rooms with full bathrooms to ensure an optimal patient experience, and modern maternity operating rooms.”
Each of the units is expected to open pending regulatory approvals over the next several weeks. Torcon Construction and Buckl Architects performed construction and planning on the project, respectively.
With the completion of the East Building, Overlook has now transformed more than 80 percent of its patient care areas. Projects that were previously completed as part of Overlook Ahead include the renovation of the entrance to and adult triage and waiting areas of the Bouras Emergency Department, the South Parking Garage for team members, and the Hersh Children’s Center, all of which were completed in 2021. The children’s center, a nearly 12,000-square-foot facility that opened in January 2022, centralizes the hospital’s pediatric emergency and inpatient services in one convenient, family-friendly space. The transformation plan also includes upgrades to the emergency department at Overlook’s main campus in Summit and satellite campus in Union, as well as upgrades and expansion to the John E. Reeves Same Day Surgery Center.
Community investment
The East Building accounted for approximately $97 million of the $168.1 million cost of the total Overlook Ahead plan. Much of the plan was supported by generous donations from the community to the Overlook Foundation, which supports the medical center, as well as vital funding secured in the NJ State budget, in addition to capital funding by the hospital.
Several NJ legislators helped secure funding for the project in the State Budget including: Senate President Nick Scutari; Senators Joe Cryan, John McKeon, Vin Gopal, Raj Mukherji, and Angela McKnight; Assembly members Reginald Atkins, Linda Carter, James Kennedy, Annette Quijano, Luanne Peterpaul, Margie Donlon, Rosaura Bagolie, Kevin Egan, Shanique Speight, Cleopatra Tucker, and William Spearman.
About Atlantic Health System
Atlantic Health System is at the forefront of medicine, setting standards for quality health care in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the New York metropolitan area. Powered by a workforce of 21,000 team members and 5,440 affiliated physicians dedicated to building healthier communities, Atlantic Health System serves more than half of the state of New Jersey including 14 counties and 7.5 million people.
The not-for-profit system offers more than 550 sites of care, including its eight hospitals: Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, NJ, Overlook Medical Center in Summit, NJ, Newton Medical Center in Newton, NJ, Chilton Medical Center in Pompton Plains, NJ, Hackettstown Medical Center in Hackettstown, NJ, Goryeb Children’s Hospital in Morristown, NJ, Atlantic Rehabilitation Institute in Madison, NJ and CentraState Healthcare System in Freehold, NJ.
The system includes Atlantic Medical Group, part of a physician enterprise that makes up one of the largest multispecialty practices in New Jersey with more than 1,700 physicians and advance practice providers. Joined with Atlantic Accountable Care Organization and Optimus Healthcare Partners they form part of Atlantic Alliance, a Clinically Integrated Network of more than 2,500 health care providers throughout northern and central NJ.
Atlantic Health System provides care for the full continuum of health care needs through 30 urgent care centers, Atlantic Visiting Nurse and Atlantic Health Virtual Visits. Facilitating the connection between these services on both land and air is the transportation fleet of Atlantic Mobile Health.
Atlantic Health System leads the Healthcare Transformation Consortium, a partnership of six regional hospitals and health systems dedicated to improving access and affordability, has a medical school affiliation with Thomas Jefferson University, is home to the regional campus of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Morristown and Overlook Medical Centers, and is the official health care partner of the New York Jets.
