All aboard: Hackensack Meridian opens health center at train station

Hackensack Meridian Health has built a new facility to help people stay on track with their health.

This week, the health system celebrated the opening of Hackensack Meridian’s Health & Wellness Center at Metropark, a $200 million project built alongside a New Jersey Transit train station. Hackensack Meridian says it’s the first health system nationwide to open up such a health facility within a mass transit hub.

Based in Woodbridge, N.J., the facility will offer primary care, urgent care, medical and surgical specialties, physical and occupational therapy, a pharmacy, and more.

The facility has a convenient location alongside a rail station used by thousands of commuters each day. The health center also offers convenient hours, open from 6 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. on weekdays (and 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. on weekends).

Jose Lozano, Hackensack Meridian’s executive vice president and chief growth officer, says the extended hours are important to give people more access.

“We know that there are thousands of travelers per day going through Metropark,” Lozano tells Chief Healthcare Executive®. “Many of them go into New York City for work and to say that we're going to provide healthcare starting at 6 a.m. in the morning … and making it really convenient as they're getting on or off the train station is really remarkable.”

“We have all the major services that one would absolutely need, everything from pathology to imaging to physical therapy, rotating specialties, primary care. So it's all right here, all under one roof,” he says.

A new model

Hackensack Meridian hopes to offer more service to its patients that are already in the system, while potentially bringing in more people who haven’t been served by the system.

“The goals are actually really simple. It’s really to provide really easily accessible, quality health care for folks that are traveling,” Lozano says.

Robert C. Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, said the new health center reflects the system’s desire to find novel ways to expand access to care.

"We are the first in the country to bring comprehensive health services to a major mass transit hub, revolutionizing where and how healthcare is delivered to reach more people,” Garrett said in a statement. “Patients who regularly attend preventive doctor's visits have considerably better health outcomes. By making it easier for people to visit the doctor, we are improving the health of our communities. We expect it will be a model emulated across the country."

The facility is just beginning to open up, and some services are still coming online, but Lozano says the health center is already drawing more than 100 people per day.

Lozano marvels at how the project came together relatively quickly, since the facility required a host of different entities to sign off on the project. In addition to local and county approvals, the facility sits on state land, the train station is owned by New Jersey Transit, and the train tracks are owned by Amtrak.

“When you think about all those government stakeholders all together, getting a transaction like this to be built in 25 months is kind of wild,” Lozano says.

‘Warm, welcoming environment’

Lozano says he’s especially happy with the design of the new health center. He said the goal was to create an inviting space that felt “a little bit less clinical.”

“We brought in some lighting, some fractal patterns, because we know that neurologically, it helps calm people down as you're walking into this space,” Lozano says.

“I mean, if you look at the facility, it is absolutely gorgeous,” he says. “It doesn't feel like a hospital in that sterile sort of component. We really wanted to create a kind of a warm, welcoming environment, but really very efficient as well. So we incorporate a lot of floor-to-ceiling windows, bringing a lot of natural lights. We all know how natural light is quite essential to a healthy environment. And so we were very thoughtful on our design.”

Hackensack Meridian has also moved its system headquarters into the new facility. Corporate employees had been spread around several different buildings.

“It's a cool, new vibe, vibrant, a lot more collaborations, and team members are getting to work together, where in the past, they weren't always able to,” Lozano says.

The health and wellness center is one of a number of new projects unfolding across Hackensack Meridian, which operates 18 hospitals and more than 500 care sites across New Jersey.

Hackensack Meridian is investing $3 billion in a series of projects aimed at expanding access to care, including hospital expansion projects, new ambulatory care sites, and urgent care centers.

Even as the system pursues a number of ambitious projects, Lozano cites the work of his team to keep everything running smoothly.

“I have a great team that is helping to keep us on target and on schedule to what we've committed to,” he says. “We are expanding our ambulatory footprint. We're making some investments in some of our acute facilities as well. And so we have a remarkable team, and we divide and conquer, and we try to really keep each other up to date, and we move at a pace that's breakneck speed.”

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