Newark Beth Israel Medical Center – ED
Newark Beth Israel Medical Center’s (NBIMC) Emergency Department has stood for decades as the vital front line of emergency care for thousands of residents of the South Ward neighborhood. Yet it has long faced a difficult reality: high patient volumes, aging infrastructure, and physical space that couldn’t keep pace with the ever-growing needs of the community.
To address this, HFNJ awarded NBIMC a $5,000,000 grant in 2021—the largest single grant in the Foundation’s history—to fund The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey Emergency Services Pavilion. This project involved a comprehensive expansion and renovation of the hospital’s emergency department. In recognition of this transformative investment, NBIMC named the newly built pavilion in HFNJ’s honor.
Completed in five phases between 2021 and October 2024, the project expanded the ED’s footprint into adjacent hospital space, growing adult acute care from 28 to 37 beds, increasing Fast Track/intake bays from 11 to 16, and expanding pediatric treatment bays from 10 to 14. The finished space includes a dedicated pediatric emergency department with board-certified pediatric specialists, an on-site Crisis Center for psychiatric emergencies, a referral center for victims of sexual assault, and a state-of-the-art resuscitation room for trauma and cardiac care.
Perhaps most impressively, the multi-phase, multi-year renovation project was completed while the ED continued to operate at full capacity throughout the project period. NBIMC’s care team adapted to frequent physical changes in the environment as different sections of were taken offline for renovation. In fact, during the years of renovation the department absorbed a 6% increase in patient volume, including a surge in pediatric visits tied to a “quad-demic” of COVID-19, flu, RSV, and norovirus.
The end results have been striking. Patient wait times fell from an average of 37-49 minutes in March 2024 to just 21 minutes by December 2024. The rate of patients who left without being seen (a key indicator of emergency care access) dropped from more than 3% to 1.34% over the same period, with early 2025 figures approaching RWJBarnabas Health’s system-wide goal of under 1%. Patient satisfaction scores climbed from the 23rd percentile to the 37th percentile immediately after the pediatric ED and related space opened. And patient volume continued to grow, with annual ED visits growing to more than 99,000 by 2025 and placing NBIMC among the nation’s 60 busiest emergency departments.
Beyond the numbers, the renovated pavilion has reshaped the day-to-day experience of care for thousands of Newark families: brighter, more private treatment spaces; separate waiting areas for children and adults; and a facility built to match dignity of the care delivered inside it.
By making its largest-ever grant to support this renovation, HFNJ has helped ensure that one of Newark’s busiest and most essential emergency departments can continue to provide high-quality, human-centered care, now and for generations of patients to come.