Finger Lakes Health says new specialists, surgery and cancer services are coming to Seneca County

Dr. Jose Acevedo, chief executive officer and president of University of Rochester, Finger Lakes Health, told the Seneca County Board of Supervisors on April 14 that the health system is expanding specialty services locally to reduce travel and improve care access. "What about if I bring the doctors to you?" Acevedo asked, describing plans to add primary care, pulmonology, rheumatology and other specialists in the county.

Acevedo said Finger Lakes Health already operates multiple outpatient practices in the county, including Seneca Family and Waterloo Life Care, and that the system is recruiting physicians with federal relocation stipends that require new providers to move within 15 miles of their workplace. "We're allowed then to give a stipend for relocation as long as the new doctors move to that community within 15 miles of the place they work," he said, adding that the rule effectively targets Seneca County for hires.

He outlined specific service additions: a new internist joining later this year, a family medicine hire (Dr. Koslowski), expanded pulmonary coverage so patients "don't have to go anywhere except Life Care," and a rheumatologist coming November 1. Acevedo also described a new Wilmot Cancer Center presence on the third floor of the Geneva medical office building with PET/CT capability, pain management and radiation oncology; he said colon cancer surgery will be performed in Geneva by Dr. Ryan Fields, chair of surgery at the University of Rochester Medical Center, on a biweekly schedule.

Board members asked about restoring obstetrics locally. Acevedo cautioned that returning labor-and-delivery services requires sufficient delivery volume and staff experience; he said the hospital had fewer than 600 deliveries a year before obstetrics stopped, which he argued is too few to maintain safe surgical and anesthesiology coverage every shift. To illustrate the staffing risk he recounted assisting in an emergency C-section when anesthesia staff were tied up in another operating room, and said that while the baby and mother were saved, that circumstance underscored the volume and staffing challenges.

Acevedo noted a systems change: all Finger Lakes Health sites will move to a shared Epic electronic medical record on Nov. 1, which he said will make labs and imaging results more accessible across sites. He framed the effort as aimed at making care more convenient to improve compliance and population health. The presentation concluded with board questions and applause; there was no formal vote tied to the presentation.