Month: January 2024

By Jill Nagy

Capital Cardiology Associates opened an office at 34 Congress Street in Saratoga Springs last fall, with a formal ribbon-cutting in December. This is the practice’s sixth office in the Capital Region.

The Saratoga office is a temporary location. In the fall of 2025, they expect to move into a new multi-speciality practice in a new building near the Wilton Mall. The Wilton location will also include a cardiac urgent care walk-in office, a “hallmark of Capital Cardiology,” according to Dr. Lance Sullenberger, the chief operating officer and a 15-year veteran of the practice.

Dr. Nicholas Kondo, a long-time Saratoga cardiologist, is at the new Saratoga office for three-and-a-half days a week. Other physicians from other offices will rotate in as needed. In Dr. Kondo’s absence, a nurse practitioner, nurses, and other medical personnel will be available. Some of the staff members have transferred to Saratoga from other offices; others are new hires. The office is equipped for diagnostic imaging. Dr. Kondo is currently accepting new patients, according to the organization.

By Susan Elise Campbell

The strategic focus of Jill Johnson VanKuren since she took over the helm of Saratoga Hospital as president and CEO in September 2022 has been on establishing a Center for Successful Aging that meets the needs of the community’s growing population of seniors. At some time during the third quarter of 2024 the Hospital will be switching over to a new electronic medical records system that VanKuren said “will provide the backbone” for a comprehensive center that brings together services supporting seniors along a continuum of care throughout the aging process.

“Albany Med is about to start their implementation of a new medical records system in the first quarter,” VanKuren said. Then affiliates under the Albany Med Health System will follow. 

Saratoga Hospital is slated to integrate its records around October, she said, and “that is the Hospital’s main focus for this year.”

“This implementation has actually been several years in the making for us,” according to VanKuren. “It is more difficult than one might think to transition to a new EMR on face value, much less to do it as a large system with many different perspectives melding into one.”

But for VanKuren, the change means more than just coming under an improved EMR that reaches across the entire Albany Med network, she said.

“It’s the basis of my strategy as a new leader in developing the Center for Successful Aging,” said VanKuren. “This is a collaborative, interdisciplinary model of care as people age that starts with integrated medical recordkeeping among those disciplines.”

By Susan Elise Campbell

Looking into the year ahead, Glens Falls Hospital is expanding or introducing several services designed to help improve the experience of being a patient in, or a visitor to, the hospital, according to President and CEO Paul Scimeca. 

“We are very proud of the care we provide,” said Scimeca. “We are a safety net for a very large service area, which covers 6,000 square miles of the Adirondacks.”

Many patients funneling down to Glens Falls Hospital from this large region need care for age-related medical conditions, reflecting the demographics of the general population. 

Others have behavioral issues to address and few places to go. To benefit this segment of the community, Scimeca said the hospital is in the process of relocating its Behavioral Health Crisis Unit so that it can be expanded from seven beds to 13.