BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM — Local residents and patients may have noticed several new St. Lawrence Health office buildings and treatment spaces opening up around the county in recent months.

The new spaces are part of a planned relocation of certain departments as the health system zeros in on a major expansion at the Canton-Potsdam Hospital and reorganization of space at its other hospitals in the region.

Among the changes, SLH’s accounts payable, compliance, human resources, information systems, patient finance and quality departments have all been relocated to the SLH Regional Administrative Campus at 6196 U.S. Highway 11, just outside the village of Canton.

The location at 6196 U.S. Highway 11 was formerly home to Frazer Computing Inc. before new parent company LeadVenture opted to downsize and move the Frazer office to 91 Main Street, Canton.

The relocations have all occurred in the past three months, said SLH Pamela Klosowski, SLH communications specialist.

“It has long been the plan for St. Lawrence Health’s non-clinical administrative services to be housed off-site in one location, where they can work more collaboratively and efficiently with other non-clinical support areas,” Klosowski said. “Since they are system-wide services, they are conveniently located midway between Gouverneur, Massena, and Potsdam where our three hospitals are located.”

“The office moves also permit much-needed office spaces to open up inside our hospitals for clinical purposes. It also allows for additional patient and visitor parking on the hospital campuses,” she said.

Office hours for those departments at the Regional Administrative Campus are 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Other recent relocations include Potsdam Cardiology’s move to the Potsdam Plaza at 201 Market St.

Also relocated there is the SLH Provider Scheduling Call Center, Klosowski said.

Other change-ups include the temporary move of the SLH Administrative C-Suite to The Quarry at Old Snell Hall, 41 Elm St., in Potsdam.

The Quarry is also now housing the SLH Clinical and Rural Health Research offices, and the Isabella Graham Hart School of Practical Nursing.

St. Lawrence Health has undergone a great deal of change in recent years. An affiliation with Rochester Regional Health, the purchase of a section of Cottage Street adjacent to Canton-Potsdam Hospital and several properties on that block and the construction of a $70 million four-story bed tower at the hospital are just a few of the major changes for the regional healthcare provider.

The bed tower project, once complete, will add a 121,000-square-foot expansion to the Canton-Potsdam Hospital building.  

The tower will give the facility a major facelift and create needed space for patient care at the hospital. It will also provide a modern elite building to accommodate future workforce development and residency training.

The first floor of the new tower will be dedicated to the hospital’s new emergency department and will provide up to 28 treatment areas.

The tower will add 60 new single occupancy rooms, and the fourth floor will be a dedicated OB wing.