BRONX NY (August 2021) — Healthcare real estate developer Joseph Simone says that the declining rate of hospital stays is prompting providers to seek new revenue models involving elective surgery and outpatient services.

“For the past four decades we’ve seen a remarkable decline in average hospital stays that is reshaping the medical landscape. Many hospitals have closed while those that remained open have launched multi-million-dollar expansions to help them replace the revenue from declining hospital stays,” said Joe Simone, President of Simone Development Companies.

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, the average length of a hospital stay declined nationally from 11.4 days in 1975 to 6.1 days in 2014.

“These government statistics are the reason why my company built the New York metro region’s first ‘bedless hospital,’ an 11-story facility in the Bronx that focuses on outpatient medical services that include surgery,” said Joseph Simone, referring to the 280,000-square-foot Montefiore Ambulatory Care Center. “Increasingly, we are seeing the construction of similar centers throughout the region and nationally.”

Hospitals are spending big money on new ambulatory centers as outdated sick wards receive fewer extended-stay patients. In Harrison, NY situated in the heart of Westchester County’s “Medical Mile” along I-287, Simone recently completed 104 Corporate Park Drive, a state-of-the-art pediatric ambulatory care facility custom designed for Montefiore Medical Center.

“These centers are critical for aging hospitals as they seek to upgrade their delivery of high-quality, specialty care,” said Joe Simone. “Today’s healthcare consumers are demanding higher levels of service and comfort from hospitals, which means that developers and landlords must pay special attention to building design.”