Mount Sinai leaders, including Jeremy Boal, MD, President, Mount Sinai Downtown, front row, second from left, and Kelly Cassano, DO, Chief of Ambulatory Care, Mount Sinai Downtown, with scissors, celebrated the opening of the new Urgent Care facility at Union Square with local politicians and community organizers. They included Claude L. Winfield, Vice Chair, Manhattan Community Board 6; New York State Assembly Member Richard N. Gottfried, District 75; Wally Rubin, District Manager, Manhattan Community Board 5; and Scott Hobbs, Deputy Director, and William D. Abramson, Co-Chair, of the Union Square Partnership.

Several doors down from the Union Square subway station sits one of the Mount Sinai Health System’s hidden gems—a 350,000-square foot, full-service ambulatory center that includes physician offices for more than 30 clinical care specialties—and a new Urgent Care facility for adults and children. The recently renovated ambulatory center and the new Urgent Care center are part of Mount Sinai’s plan to transform health care services for New Yorkers south of 34th Street.

Deceptively simple from the outside, the ambulatory center’s sleek glass and stone entry gives way to five busy floors where more than 350 physicians and 550 staff take care of patients who live and work in downtown Manhattan, Brooklyn, and surrounding areas. The Mount Sinai Union Square ambulatory center includes an outpatient facility with six operating rooms, a 17-chair chemotherapy infusion suite, doctor’s offices, exam rooms, radiological suites with the latest technology, space for in-office procedures, and a pharmacy.

An indoor parking garage on the lower level conveniently leads directly into the building. At the beginning of 2018, Mount Sinai Union Square will open new Cardiology and Respiratory institutes, followed by new OB-GYN, general Pediatric, and specialty Pediatric suites later in the year.

At the new Urgent Care facility, adults and children receive the highest quality care from board-certified emergency medicine physicians who treat patients seven days a week and during evening hours. The facility also includes a full X-ray room and point-of-care testing that can provide patients with the answers they need immediately. For medical emergencies, patients south of 34th Street will continue to be seen at Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s (MSBI) Emergency Department, which will be in operation until the new Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital opens.

“Mount Sinai is leading the way in improving the health care experience for people who live and work in this community,” says Jeremy Boal, MD, President, Mount Sinai Downtown, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, Mount Sinai Health System. “Health care delivery is changing and we are committed to embracing this change with excellent and convenient care that keeps people healthy. Our significant investment in modernization attests to our commitment to the community south of 34th Street, where we intend to stay and grow.”

Within the next couple of years construction will begin on the new MSBI, resulting in a technologically sophisticated hospital that conforms to the demands of modern, twenty-first century medicine. This hospital of the future at MSBI will incorporate the rapidly changing improvements taking place in the field of medicine in a new infrastructure that requires a smaller physical footprint. It will be located next door to an enhanced New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai.

“Our ambulatory services were designed to address the community’s needs for high-quality specialized care under one roof,” says Kelly Cassano, DO, Chief of Ambulatory Care, Mount Sinai Downtown. “Patients who visit the Mount Sinai Union Square building will receive full-service urgent care services or the comprehensive specialized services they require.”

Indeed, as Paul Zucker, Vice President of Ambulatory Operations, points out, the Union Square facility houses two MRI machines—including one that is brand new—along with mammography and radiation oncology equipment, and an infrastructure that handles wide-ranging specialties that include maternal fetal medicine and vascular surgery. “What differentiates us,” he says, “is that patients can access virtually every medical specialty without ever leaving the building.”