Stony Brook Medicine opens Advanced Specialty Care office

Stony Brook Medicine on Thursday said it has opened its Advanced Specialty Care office in 120,000 square feet of space at the former Forest Labs headquarters on Commack Road in Commack.

The center, the first of its kind for the health system, puts 30 medical specialties under one roof. The specialties include primary care, pediatrics, urology, surgery and radiology.

Stony Brook started taking patients at the facility on Wednesday.

The new location will help Stony Brook compete in western Suffolk County, the health system said.

“It’s almost a one-stop shopping experience,” said Dr. Kenneth Kaushansky, senior vice president for health sciences and dean of Stony Brook University School of Medicine. “It’s better delivery, it’s better outcomes, it’s better for the patients and the doctors.”

Kaushansky said the future of health care delivery is in such “multidisciplinary clinics.”

Stony Brook is also moving its WTC Wellness Program into the facility. The clinic, which will take up about 20,000 square feet, works with first responders with 9/11-related health concerns.

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Demand for health care continues to climb in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Long Island had 224,400 health care and social assistance jobs as of December, a 4.2 percent year-over-year increase, according to the state labor department.

The state predicts the Island will add 47,080 health care jobs from 2012 to 2022, a 23 percent increase. That’s more than twice the overall employment growth rate, projected to be 11 percent.

Other health systems are also expanding here.

Manhattan-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center expanded its Commack clinic by 38,000 square feet, to a total of more than 91,000 square feet.

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Northwell Health is also growing services throughout Long Island. Earlier this year, the New Hyde Park-based health system opened a heart hospital at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset and a new emergency room at Huntington Hospital.

Northwell also opened its first cancer-care center in Suffolk County late last year. The Imbert Cancer Center replaced a former King Kullen supermarket at 440 E. Main St. in Bay Shore.