The North Shore-LIJ Health System recently celebrated the completion of the largest expansion project in the health system's history – a 10-story glass tower featuring 162 single-bed rooms with hotel-like accommodations.

To improve medical care, all units have decentralized nursing stations so staff can closely monitor patients, utilizing telemetry technology in each room that allows for the measurement of patients' heart rate and breathing rates, blood pressure, blood-oxygen levels and other vital information. All rooms also have kidney dialysis hook-ups available.

Michael J. Dowling, president and CEO of the health system, has been recognized for his leadership on the healthcare IT front. Chief among the initiatives undertaken by North Shore-LIJ under Dowling’s leadership is the more than $400 million investment for the creation of an electronic health record system.

To adequately staff the new facility, 75 new employees have been hired.

The $300 million expansion project – featuring the Zuckerberg Pavilion and Katz Women's Hospital – opened last month after more than three years of construction. With its glass facade and hallways the length of a football field, the 300,000-square-foot tower was designed to transform the 1950s appearance of the 57-year-old hospital, which straddles the Nassau/Queens County border in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

The 57,000-square-foot Zuckerberg Pavilion will serve as the new entrance for all LIJ services. It includes a two-story lobby and 60 new single-bed surgical rooms on the eighth and ninth floors for orthopedic, urological and cardiovascular patients, as well as a physical therapy gym.

With its own separate entrance, the Katz Women's Hospital features a range of maternity and gynecological surgery services on four floors. Housing one of the busiest maternity programs in New York State with more than 5,000 babies delivered annually.