Bay Path’s $12.7 million Health Science Center opens

Date: 1/15/2015

EAST?LONGMEADOW – Bay Path University’s $12.7 million Philip H. Ryan Health Science Center at 1 Denslow Road officially opened its doors to graduate students the week of Jan. 5.

A ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled to take place on Jan. 22 from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the 58,000-square-foot facility, constructed to house graduate programs such as occupational therapy (OT) and physician assistant (PA) studies, Michael Giampietro, vice president for finance and administrative services at Bay Path University, said.

“About three years ago, the [university] began looking to expand because we totally used all our space back at the Longmeadow campus and we were growing our academic programs at that time,” he added. “We found that we were going to be completely out of classroom space.”

Bay Path’s parking was also “completely maxed out” during this time and the university had to rent remote parking areas and shuttle students to and from the Longmeadow location, Giampietro said.

Now, the newly built center has 350 parking spaces to accommodate approximately 250 to 300 students, he noted. 

The university examined 50 different properties when searching for a site location including parcels in Longmeadow, Springfield, Agawam, Chicopee, West Springfield, and East Longmeadow, he said. The center needed to remain in Massachusetts for accreditation purposes.

“[The site was chosen because] it was close to our main campus in Longmeadow,” he added. “It was undeveloped at the time and it gave us the best opportunity to create a campus from scratch.”

In the end, Bay Path purchased an 11-acre parcel of land for $1 million in June 2013, Giampietro said. The facility was constructed by Crocker Building Company of Springfield during a 13-month period and was officially completed on Dec. 31, 2014.

The building consists of features such as a patient assessment lab, which essentially designed like an emergency room, as well as four occupational therapy labs, and a model apartment for the OT program. 

“Occupational therapy is a health care program that focuses on helping people who may have a disability or injury or another impairment to be able to do the activities that are important to them every day,” Lori Vaughn, OT program director and associate professor at Bay Path University, said.

Bay Path’s OT program is one of the largest in Massachusetts, she added. There are about 130 students enrolled for each of the program’s two years. The four OT labs are each designed for different fields, including geriatrics, psychology, pediatric, and physical disabilities.

“They learn how to evaluate people who have disabilities [and are] able to provide client centered treatment to help them either get back to their prior functional level or be able to participate in their activities with modifications or adaptations,” Vaughn said.

The model apartment on the second floor, where most of the OT learning areas are located, is used to simulate a typical home environment for OT’s during their daily treatment of clients, she explained.

“How is that woman who had a stroke; how is she going to be able to continue to cook?” Vaughn said. “How is she going to be able to continue to do the laundry or be able to get out of bed? We use the lab for simulated clinical experiences that they will have out in the real world.”

Jennifer Hixon, associate dean and program director for Bay Path’s physician assistant program, said the PA program was founded in 2011 and the program trains PAs to work in teams with physicians to see patients in an efficient manner.

“We have graduated our first class, the class of 2014 [with 23 students],” she added. “They are out doing great things. They are all working. They’ve passed their boards and are moving into the community. We have the class of 2015 that will graduate in May and 2016 is here sitting in class as we speak learning about renal oncology.”

Hixon said students spend four weeks or eight weeks during their second clinical year participating in clerkships and learning various disciplines off-site at primary care offices, operating rooms, and emergency rooms at hospitals such as Bay State Medical Center in Springfield and RiverBend Medical Group in Chicopee.

“It is no secret,” she added. “We have a national shortage of physicians but here in Western Massachusetts particularly the need is critical. Also, physician assistants have stepped up to take a role in the efficiency and adequacy of patient care.

“Western Massachusetts, Hampden County in particular, has the worst, dead-last worst, health care statistics in the state,” she continued. “We are committed to being part of the solution to put Western Mass in a better standing as far as the treatment of our community members.”