N.Y. Giants and Hackensack hospital team up on Maywood fitness center

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Hackensack University Medical Center has teamed up with the New York Giants to open a fitness and wellness center in Maywood. The 112,000-square-foot facility, scheduled to open at the end of 2013, will focus on health, education, prevention and motivation.“We are moving away from managing chronic disease and focusing on population health in terms of addressing issues proactively,” said Ketul J. Patel, executive vice president and chief operation and strategy officer for the hospital. “When you combine an organization like the Giants with Hackensack University Medical Center, it catapults the project to a much higher level.”
The center is designed to appeal to everyone – the avid exerciser, the couch potato and the chronically ill. Each member will receive a quarterly health risk, fitness assessment and personalized training program from the staff of fitness and medical professionals. The alliance with the Giants will bring the team’s experience in sports performance, training and healthy lifestyle programs to the center, with a strong focus on community outreach, combating childhood obesity and an overall push to get both children and adults active.
“This is a great opportunity for the organization to reach out to the community and promote health and wellness,” said Mike Stevens, chief marketing officer for the New York Giants.
The center will feature state-of-the-art equipment, group exercise studios, three salt water-filtered pools, a Pilates studio, a sauna, steam room and a sports performance center featuring workouts, some of which will be coordinated with the assistance of Giants’ trainers. The fitness center will also include a day spa, complimentary child care, a demonstration cooking studio and a healthy food café.
“The whole arena of wellness, fitness and prevention is a very important area of growth for hospitals and the health care industry in general, especially the focus on preventing illness and chronic disease,” said Mark Sparta, vice president and senior operations officer for the hospital.
The Debra Simon Center for Integrative Medicine, a comprehensive wellness pavilion, will be housed in the building, offering programs on issues such as heart disease, arthritis, stress management and senior health. Available health and wellness services will include diabetes treatment, mammography, bone density screenings, physical therapy and outpatient behavioral health services.
The facility will be located on Route 17 north in Maywood, close to the 500,000 people who live within a five-mile radius, Sparta said.
“Folks from the community only want to come to the hospital when there is something wrong with them,” Sparta said. “We’re taking the services out to the community and making them more accessible.”