Community Medical Center $5M Hovnanian gift helps build spruced-up emergency department

Michael L. Diamond, Asbury Park Press
·3 min read

TOMS RIVER - Community Medical Center received the biggest donation in its history, helping it put the finishing touches on a 57,000-square-foot emergency department that officials say will be better designed to treat an aging population.

As a result of the $5 million gift from the H. Hovnanian Family Foundation, the hospital will rename the facility after the foundation's founders, Hirair and Anna Hovnanian.

"It's easy to write a check," said Edele Hovnanian, their daughter and now president of the foundation. "But it's the people that work inside the building that really will make all the difference in the world. And I am eternally amazed at those people who choose to have a life of service."

A sign at Community Medical Center in Toms River bears the new name of the hospital's emergency department.
A sign at Community Medical Center in Toms River bears the new name of the hospital's emergency department.

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Hovnanian spoke Wednesday night to hospital executives, employees, patients and Toms River leaders at an event that marked the first step in what is shaping up as a massive expansion for the hospital.

Community Medical Center is joining other Shore-area hospitals in updating its emergency department — a facility that sees 75,000 patients a year, or more than 200 a day.

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The lobby of the renovated emergency department at Community Medical Center in Toms River.
The lobby of the renovated emergency department at Community Medical Center in Toms River.

About the renovation

The $37 million project is a renovation of its existing building and opening in stages; the final product is expected to be completed in nine months to a year, said Patrick Ahearn, Community Medical Center's chief executive officer.

The redesigned department will have open space where health workers can collaborate and monitor patients. It will have more than 100 private rooms. It will have diagnostic equipment that is easily accessible. It will have a sensory room with soothing colors.

The goal: to improve care for a hospital where 73% of patients are covered by Medicare, Ahearn said.

"This is the foundation of what we're going to accomplish going forward," he said.

A architect's rendering of a new treatment room in the renovated emergency department of Community Medical Center in Toms River.
A architect's rendering of a new treatment room in the renovated emergency department of Community Medical Center in Toms River.

Hospital employees said the renovation should pay off.

Dr. Meika Neblett, chief medical and academic officer, said the former emergency department was isolating, both for patients and staff, making it outdated in an age when workers from different specialties are encouraged to collaborate.

"Now the way they all have it worked out, the different areas are all working together as one big interdisciplinary team, so the nurse, the tech, the respiratory, the phlebotomist, the doctor, the PA (physician's assistant), the residents all are working in the same section, and they can all see each other and work together with all the patients," Neblett said. "So no one's running around this big racetrack and not sure what everyone else there is doing."

A architect's rendering of a hallway in the revamped emergency department of Community Medical Center in Toms River.
A architect's rendering of a hallway in the revamped emergency department of Community Medical Center in Toms River.

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About the Hovnanians

One of the emergency department's new namesakes, Hirair Hovnanian, was founder of Hovsons, a construction company that began in the late 1950s, when he and a cousin bought 23 acres off Bay Avenue in Toms River and began building single-family homes.

He eventually built Holiday City, one of the nation's first big developments geared for seniors.

Hirair Hovnanian died in April at the age of 90. Anna, his wife, died three years earlier.

A architect's rendering of the waiting area in the revamped emergency department of Community Medical Center in Toms River.
A architect's rendering of the waiting area in the revamped emergency department of Community Medical Center in Toms River.

Edele Hovnanian noted she spent her early childhood growing up in Toms River, and the donation was a chance to give back to a community in which her family was deeply rooted.

"It truly takes a unique individual to work in a hospital, and I'm so appreciative," she told onlookers. "We come to you when we are the most stressed, we are the most scared, and you calm us down. You take the best care and you clearly show us that there is joy in the profession you've chosen. And for that, the least I can do is write a check to make your building a little prettier."

Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter who has been writing about the New Jersey economy and health care industry for more than 20 years. He can be reached at mdiamond@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Community Medical Center Hovnanian gift helps rebuild emergency room