$2.5M donation from KeyBank gives boost to ECMCC's trauma & emergency department capital campaign

Facility will be known as KeyBank trauma and emergency department, and will help physicians and hospital staff continue to provide world-class, personal patient care in a modern, advanced setting

KeyBank is making a $2.5 million donation to Erie County Medical Center Corp.’s (ECMCC) trauma and emergency department capital campaign. This grant is being made by KeyBank in partnership with the First Niagara Foundation, and has put the campaign close to its goal of $15 million.

Construction is well underway on the new facility on ECMCC’s Grider Street health campus. It is expected to open in early 2020 and will be known as the KeyBank trauma and emergency department.

“I am very happy, on behalf of my fellow board members, to extend our deep appreciation to KeyBank for this extraordinary donation,” said Jonathan A. Dandes, chairman, ECMCC board of directors. “KeyBank’s contribution to this project is a testament to their confidence in ECMCC’s mission and their recognition of our talented, dedicated trauma and emergency department caregivers. We are proud of our caregivers’ high-quality health care services, which every day make a positive difference in the lives of our fellow Western New Yorkers.”

“On behalf of ECMCC’s thousands of dedicated caregivers, particularly the highly skilled emergency department clinicians and excellent support staff, we are deeply grateful to KeyBank for this exceptional contribution,” said Thomas J. Quatroche Jr., Ph.D., ECMCC president and CEO. “We have benefitted from strong community support for this critically important project, and KeyBank’s significant donation underscores their commitment to supporting ECMCC’s delivery of lifesaving care to thousands of our friends, neighbors and loved ones.”

The new trauma and emergency department will contain greater efficiencies in patient flow and staff workflow, thereby enabling the department’s medical services team to achieve high-quality standards and outcomes. The current facility, built to accommodate 45,000 patients annually, treats over 70,000 patients each year.

“ECMC’s new trauma and emergency department will have a transformative effect on the already excellent care the hospital provides to the people of Western New York,” said Elizabeth Gurney, director of corporate philanthropy for KeyBank and director of the First Niagara Foundation. “We’re proud to support the lifesaving work that the doctors, nurses and staff at ECMC do every day and look forward to the opening of this new facility that will set a new standard for patient care in our region.”

“We are proud of our long relationship with ECMC, and their new trauma center and emergency department is another step forward for this facility that has seen tremendous growth over the past two decades,” said Gary Quenneville, KeyBank regional executive and Buffalo market president. “This investment at ECMC is our latest on Buffalo’s East Side and reflects the enthusiasm we have for all of the great things happening in this neighborhood.”

The customized layout of the new space will better align with physicians’ and staff’s work flow while creating a more patient-oriented space containing larger rooms to accommodate patients’ families and the medical services team.

A press release stated, “As the region’s busiest and only level 1 adult trauma and emergency department serving the 1.5 million residents of the eight counties of Western New York, this expansion is crucial to ECMC’s efforts to meet current and future demands for appropriate trauma and emergency care. The trauma and emergency department serves patients for trauma, emergency psychiatric conditions via ECMC’s comprehensive psychiatric emergency program (“CPEP”), and traditional medical conditions, and is best suited of any of the region’s emergency departments to handle mass casualty, disaster-related circumstances.

“ECMC’s new trauma and emergency department will address an important community need by expanding the health care delivery system’s capacity to serve patients that require emergency medical attention, serve as a referral source for other area hospitals to transfer patients requiring specialized emergency care, advance ECMC’s engagement and investment in the City of Buffalo’s Delevan-Grider Corridor, and build on ECMC’s growing and dynamic relationship with Kaleida Health and the University at Buffalo’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.”

Updates on construction progress at the new facility, including photos, are available on ECMC’s website.