Lieber, Halperin Offer Historical Context to Helipad Project

In the third installment with Hometowne Television on Overlook Hospital's application before the Summit Zoning Board of Adjustment, hospital President Alan Lieber and Medical Director of Neuroscience at Atlantic Health Dr. John Halperin offered a historical context for the helipad application that is rarely given.

Lieber detailed a short history of Atlantic Health that explains the resource allocation among the partner hospitals and the vision to give each hospital in the system a speciality: Morristown Memorial became the hub for cardiac and pediatrics in addition to being the regions trauma center and Overlook became the center of excellence for neuroscience.

"Overlook has now worked for over a decade to become really the best neuroscience center in the state and quite honestly our goal is to be the best in the New York Metropolitan Area," he said.

In addition to spending somewhere between $30-40 million dollars toward this goal, Lieber said the hospital has also invested in the staff training to assemble specialized teams for epilepsy, dementia, brain tumors, Parkinson's Disease, and concussions, just to name a few.

Lieber also highlighted some of the state of the art equipment that is unique to Overlook, such as a CyberKnife for radiation treatment, the 3T MRI and the 320 Slice CT scanner, which is the only one of its kind in New Jersey.

"So those have all been investments to support the development of a great Neuroscience Center," Lieber said.

But Halperin said the reason why the helipad wasn't part of the hospital's plans when the Neuroscience Center was formed is because of radical changes in the way doctors understand the biology of stroke and the treatment of it.

"Each minute you lose translates into lost brain," he said.

But the changes in technology, especially the unique variety that Overlook has, including the Merci device and the Penumbra technique, has meant an increase in the patients become transferred to Overlook from other hospitals.

"There is a group of 60 or 70 patients a year that are being trans to Overlook Hospital via helicopter and this is going to be safer for them and safer for the community and that's really the whole logic behind the helipad," Lieber said.

Many residents still maintain that the quality of care stroke patients can receive at any of the state's other Comprehensive Stroke Centers, including Morristown Memorial, is equivalent to that they can receive at Overlook Hospital. But both Lieber and Halperin said that is just not the case since the 3T MRI, 320 Slice CT, cyberknife, and Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit are all only at Overlook.

Halperin referenced a recent case where a patient was flown to Morristown from Newton with an acute stroke and it was determined by Morristown doctors that they could not treat the patient's needs. The patients was transferred by ambulance to Overlook where doctors used the 320 Slice CT scan and the patient eventually walked out of the hospital.

"We obviously don't have the same resources at Morristown," he said. "Morristown is an excellent program but it's just the same highest level of care."

Halperin also said that while the patient was successfully flown to Morristown and then transferred to Overlook by ground, it cost the patient an additional 20 minutes at least to intervene.

"In this case internally we clearly recognized the better thing to do was get that patient here, and it worked out very well for that patient," he said. "But it would work out even better and more consistently if we could them directly here and save that transfer time."

But a main point of contention with the public hasn't been the denying quality care to stroke patients, but the fear that Overlook would eventually become a trauma center like Morristown Memorial Hospital.

But Lieber said that evolution is very unlikely.

"We couldn't become a trauma center if we wanted to," he said.

The reason, he says, is that there is a state process to become a trauma centers and with three already surrounding Overlook–Morristown Memorial, Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick, and University of Medicine and Dentistry New Jersey in Newark–it is unlikely the state would allow Overlook to become one as well.

Part of the reason, he said, is become to become a trauma center you need 24-hour coverage and to be a successful one you need to maintain a certain level of patients coming. If Overlook became a trauma center, it would take patients away from the other three hospitals.

"I just can't imagine a scenario where the state would deem that is was appropriate to have a trauma center in between," he said.

Lieber also touched briefly on concerns about the enforceability of the conditions of approval being proposed by Overlook.

"We proposed those conditions to try to give people comfort as to we are willing to accept a series of conditions," he said. "We really want this for Neuroscience and what we consider a really small number of patients."

To watch the full episode, check out HTTV's Video On Demand here.