Two Employee Resource Groups, Mount Sinai Interfaith and Islamic Community at Mount Sinai, Hold a Silent Vigil

Updated on Feb 8, 2024 | Community, Diversity and Inclusion, Featured

Rowaida Farraj, PharmD, left, and Rabbi Jo Hirschmann, BCC, FACHE

The Mount Sinai Interfaith and the Islamic Community at Mount Sinai employee resource groups gathered to hold space for collective grief and to express their shared humanity, love, respect, and understanding on Wednesday, January 10.

About 90 Mount Sinai employees, students, and trainees joined the virtual vigil held via a Zoom call.

The event, titled “Our Shared Humanity: A Silent Vigil for Mourning,” was led by Rabbi Jo Hirschmann, BCC, FACHE, Senior Director of Education, Center for Spirituality and Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Rowaida Farraj, PharmD, Executive Director of Pharmacy, Mount Sinai Downtown.

“We spend so much of our lives talking. We wanted to create a quiet space where we could connect with ourselves and each other,” said Rabbi Hirschmann. “Together, we made space for our grief and for the hope and comfort that can come from simply being together. It was very meaningful to do this as Mount Sinai colleagues.”

Dr. Rowaida shared similar sentiments.

“It is clear many people are hurting during this difficult time,” she said. “We all needed a safe space to be together to feel that pain but also feel the presence of our community at Mount Sinai Health System which acknowledges that pain, respects all people, and hopes for a better future. We are so grateful we were able to create this space for everyone.”

Read the prayers and poems shared during the event

Learn more about Employee Resource Groups at Mount Sinai

GOALS Employee Resource Group Explores Environmental Racism and How It May Appear In a Work Atmosphere

Updated on Jan 18, 2024 | Community, Diversity and Inclusion, Featured

The Growth in Operations, Administration, and Leadership Society (GOALS) employee resource group hosted its quarterly meeting, bringing together about 20 Black men from across the Mount Sinai community to discuss environmental and systematic racism and how it affects the work atmosphere.

The session was held Wednesday, December 6, at the Annenberg Building on the campus of The Mount Sinai Hospital. Anthony Smalls, MBA, Financial Analyst and Program Manager at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, organized the event.

The GOALS employee resource group aims to address issues that can affect change and meets quarterly to discuss various topics and provide networking opportunities for its members. Members have the opportunity to meet with those with experience and longevity at Mount Sinai Health System, which is vital to fostering mentorship.

Christopher W. Bland, MPH, AE-C, was the keynote speaker and led the discussion. He presented at Mount Sinai Health System’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Summit in October 2023 on climate change and environmental racism.

Christopher W. Bland, MPH, AE-C, talks at a meeting of the Growth in Operations, Administration, and Leadership Society (GOALS) employee resource group.

“The word ‘system’ derives from the idea of placing together in an organized and arranged form,” he said.  “Thus, a system isn’t something that occurs but is a well-thought process to achieve a specific outcome. Unfortunately, the communities that house the Black and Latino populations are affected worst by some systems that are in place.”

Mr. Bland discussed the effects of health insurance and health care, food deserts, pollution, and trash pickups in Black and Brown communities.  He said that Mount Sinai has continued to serve the community with the highest form of medical care and fosters community relationships with organizations like One Hundred Black Men Inc.

Still, more work needs to occur to end these systematic cycles, he said, adding a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Added Mr. Smalls: “From redlining to income gaps to predatory lending to home loan discrimination to the racial wealth gap, our communities have had so many obstructions in our paths that if they were ever to be removed permanently from our course, we might hit levels that most could not fathom.”

Retention of staff of color is essential to diversity. With GOALS, members get an opportunity see others from our communities at different levels within Mount Sinai. A motto of One Hundred Black Men is “They will be what they see.”

To learn more about the GOALS ERG, email GOALS@mssm.edu or visit the website GOALS (Growth in Operations, Administrations and Leadership Society).

Unsung Security Officers Participate in Resilience Educational Program: For Some, a First Introduction to Helpful Strategies

Updated on Jan 8, 2024 | Community, Diversity and Inclusion, Featured

Wayne Powell, Security Training Manager, and Reverend Zorina Costello, DMin, MDiv, MS, who helped create a resilience program specifically for security officers.

Hospital security officers are often our first human contact when we walk into a hospital. While they share the job description of “front-line worker,” along with doctors and nurses, they are both highly visible and yet “unsung” for all they do.

As the pandemic swept through New York City hospitals in 2020, their jobs transformed overnight as they became enforcers of new COVID-19 rules. One of the toughest rules: telling some visitors they could not come in. “Visitors to The Mount Sinai Hospital were not happy to hear about that. They wanted to see their loved ones, and we had to tell them ‘just one of you can go up,’” says Wayne Powell, Security Training Manager at The Mount Sinai Hospital.

One year into the pandemic, the faculty of Mount Sinai’s Center for Stress, Resilience, and Personal Growth took notice of the unique strain security officers were shouldering and created a resilience program, specifically tailored to officers like Mr. Powell. And more recently, they published a paper describing their approach and results.

“It was like a counseling session where you take a time out and reflect and think about the positive things and channel that to something great,” Wayne Powell, Security Training Manager, said of the program.

The Center opened in 2020 to serve as a resource for all Mount Sinai Health System staff and students. Staffed by social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and a healthcare chaplain, the Center provides educational workshops, confidential behavioral health care, and a resilience-building mobile app to faculty, staff, and trainees. Center faculty and staff also regularly publish peer-reviewed scientific articles about their findings, so that other health systems may benefit.

Reverend Zorina Costello, DMin, MDiv, MS, played a key role in creating the security officer program during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. In addition to her Doctorate of Ministry in Pastoral Counseling. Rev. Costello has training in counseling, providing the skills to develop workshops tailored to security personnel that would have an impact.

“They often work alone and have few opportunities to socialize with their colleagues. In addition, they face myriad physical hazards and long working hours, making them susceptible to psychological stress, fatigue, and occupational burnout,” says the Rev. Dr. Costello.

During her 10 years at Mount Sinai, she has had the opportunity to meet the security team beyond just “hello” or “good morning.”  During her lengthy tenure in Mount Sinai’s chaplaincy, she had become the main point of contact for staff when colleagues passed away, giving her an intimate connection with hospital staff, including the security team.

While facilitating services for security personnel over the years, she started to understand their unique culture. “I was beginning to see how their isolation was affecting them and how the services presented unique opportunities for isolated workers to come together,” says Rev. Dr. Costello.

Rev. Dr. Costello served as co-author of a paper titled “A Resilience Program for Hospital Security Officers During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using a Community Engagement Model,” published in the Journal of Community Health in September 2023.

The paper describes how she and colleagues at the Center first conducted a pilot program and then launched a second program based on feedback they received, the latter comprised of twelve short briefings in which faculty and staff at the Center provided education around psychological first aid (PFA). PFA is an evidence-based approach to providing emotional support and ensuring safety in the acute aftermath of a stressful event. The program was well attended, reaching 107 officers who identified mostly as male (86 percent) and people of color (95 percent).

Viewed as a success, and fully embraced by security personnel, the program will be replicated at Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai Morningside, according to Rev. Dr. Costello.

Security officers participated in 20-minute briefings that included a visual presentation with discussion focused on acknowledging the officers’ contribution to workplace safety and their exposure to violence; educating officers about clinical services available to them through the Center; and, discussing basic psychological first aid and coping skills. In a follow-up survey, the team found that the majority of officers (71 percent) felt that the workshops gave them the tools to do their jobs well and that the skills they honed were relevant (72 percent) to their lives outside of work.

“An important aspect of the briefings was to share resources at Mount Sinai for additional support, due to the officers’ limited knowledge of how to access mental health supports. While little is known about these kinds of interventions for security personnel, we do know from studies of police officers that two key impediments to getting help include not knowing how to access help and concerns about the stigma,” said Rev. Dr. Costello.

This work was funded in part through the support of the Aronson Family Foundation and by grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Mr. Powell, who is looking forward to his 60th birthday in December, has served Mount Sinai for 27 years. Yet this was his first exposure to these beneficial mental health concepts.

“For me personally, it was very successful, especially coming off the COVID-19 pandemic. It was like a counseling session where you take a time out and reflect and think about the positive things and channel that to something great,” says Mr. Powell. As he onboards new security personnel, he has made it a priority to sign his employees up for this training program.

Institute for Health Equity Research Holds Inaugural Symposium to Exchange Ideas and Propel Research

Updated on Dec 19, 2023 | Community, Diversity and Inclusion, Featured

Carol Horowitz, MD, MPH, left, and Lynne D. Richardson, MD, directors of the Institute for Health Equity Research, at its inaugural symposium.

As part of its mission to elevate the science of heath equity, the Institute for Health Equity Research (IHER) held its inaugural symposium, one of the first major milestones in a new partnership between IHER and Royalty Pharma, established in 2022, to build an infrastructure to exchange ideas and propel research collaboration.

“We founded IHER to elevate the science of health equity to the same level as other important areas of science that are studied here at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. We are very pleased to partner with Royalty Pharma as we engage other leaders in the field to bring this conversation to the forefront,” says IHER Co-Director Lynne D. Richardson, MD, Professor of Emergency Medicine, and Population Health Science and Policy, Icahn Mount Sinai.

“We designed the symposium to explore two main areas of priority: collecting strong data to transform clinical care and building partnerships for cross-sector engagement,” says IHER Director Carol Horowitz, MD, MPH, Professor, Population Health Science and Policy, and Medicine, and Dean for Gender Equity in Science and Medicine.

The symposium, titled “From Inquiry to Action,” was held Friday, December 1, at Icahn Mount Sinai. The Institute was founded in 2020.

“To help us craft solutions that will really make a difference, we need community-based organizations to help us understand the lived experiences within the community,” says Dr. Horowitz. “We can’t come into a community without understanding the social determinants of health at a local level: Do members of the community have access to nutritious food, do they live in safe housing, how clean is the air?  Our institute is looking at all these different influences and working hand-in-hand with people from local communities to develop programs that tangibly improve their health.”

Dr. Horowitz moderated a panel of experts from community-based organizations, academia, and the public sector. The panelists described the challenges and possibilities of community-engaged equity initiatives.

“The use of data, both from health care organizations and from other sectors, is key to addressing structural inequities and achieving health equity,” says Dr. Richardson.

Dr. Richardson moderated a diverse panel that included leaders from health care, payors, and industry who described how cross sector data on health status and health care utilization can be linked to individual data on social risks and needs and to neighborhood data on physical and social exposures that threaten health. The panelists presented examples of how data can be harnessed to inform organizational strategies to promote equity and discussed the considerable challenges of using data in ethical and unbiased ways that do not adversely impact minoritized populations.

Through many voices and viewpoints, a familiar pattern emerged: a sobering story of a broken system that continues to fail its most vulnerable patients.

The keynote speaker, former New York State Health Commissioner, Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPH, FXB Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, described the unequal landscape of medicine over time and across the country.  At one point, she reminded the audience that it was only 15 years ago that the American Medical Association, the voice of organized medicine in the United States, acknowledged that it had wrongly allowed, even endorsed, policies that prohibited Black physicians from practicing in hospitals.

“That Black individuals disproportionately suffer from kidney failure is one of many manifestations of unequal care that has its seed in a very long list of inequities,” says Dinushika Mohottige, MD, MPH.

Two members of the IHER faculty presented their research, beginning with Dinushika Mohottige, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Population Science and Policy, and Medicine (Nephrology). Dr. Mohottige, who specializes in kidney health equity, led her presentation with a startling statistic: While 13 percent of the U.S. population is Black, Black Americans make up 35 percent of individuals receiving dialysis care.

“That Black individuals disproportionately suffer from kidney failure is one of many manifestations of unequal care that has its seed in a very long list of inequities from underinsurance, limited access to doctors, and a wide spectrum of unequal social determinants working against them. Kidney patients, specifically, also experience the lingering challenges resulting from a race-based algorithm that has been phased out but which previously limited the possibilities for transplantation for Black patients,” says Dr. Mohottige.

Dr. Mohottige has found partners to leverage equity data to reform transplant roadblocks. To address the eGFR algorithm, a race-based correction that had the effect of overestimating a Black patient’s kidney function, she has worked with colleagues to help implement restorative policies to require unbiased, race neutral estimates of kidney health that began in January 2023.

She discussed cascading barriers to transplantation that begin with challenges to transplant referral and evaluation.

“These challenges can include trauma, discrimination, financial or employment instability, mental health or substance abuse, underinsurance, food insecurity or transportation barriers. If you are an individual with any of these challenges, imagine how hard it is to take even the simplest of steps in this long journey,” says Dr. Mohottige. “A fundamental part of change is simply making sure providers know that any of these obstacles can be an impediment, and we know from the data that clinicians are not always aware of these roadblocks.  To address this, we are working with multiple partners to build training programs to fill some of the education gaps among providers who treat these vulnerable populations.”

“Faith-based organizations are a natural place to integrate mental health supports,” says Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA.

Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA, Associate Professor, Population Health Science Policy, and Psychiatry, and a Mount Sinai Biomedical Laureate, described several initiatives designed to address mental health inequities in New York City. African Americans and Mexican Americans, he told his listeners, have the lowest rates of depression treatment in the United States. Dr. Hankerson is working to address this problem through partnerships he has developed with faith-based organizations throughout the NYC area and Westchester County.

Through the First Corinthians Baptist Church in Central Harlem, he has collaborated with church leadership to develop free mental health care embedded in their HOPE (Healing on Purpose and Evolving) Center. With a new grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, he is expanding the program by training psychiatry residents at Mount Sinai in the principles of community engagement and supervising residents who provide direct clinical services at the HOPE Center.

Through the TRIUMPH (TRansformIng yoUr Mental health through Prayer and Healing (Triumph Together), he has developed an eight- week training program to teach motivational interviewing in churches in the five boroughs and Westchester. TRIUMPH aims to address racial and gender disparities that affect Blacks and other communities of color by promoting mental health equity, increasing mental health literacy, reducing stigma, and improving access to care for depression, anxiety, prolonged grief, and drug use.

“More people initially seek help for depression from clergy than from psychiatrists.  So, faith-based organizations are a natural place to integrate mental health supports,” says Dr. Hankerson.

Through grant funding from the Scarlett Feather Foundation, Dr. Hankerson is now launching “Brothers Connect,” a suicide prevention program aimed at black youth ages 13-19. The program will roll out in YMCA’s across the city to reach boys participating in basketball leagues.

“All of these programs have one thing in common: They are all created as community-based networks of care to reach vulnerable populations where they are,” says Dr. Hankerson. “Our churches and local Y’s are safe havens where we can have the greatest impact. These programs underline how important it is for an institution like Mount Sinai to find partners in the community to reach patients who aren’t likely to walk through our doors and ask for help.”

Learn more about the Institute for Health Equity Research

Transforming the Face of Pharmacy by Training Knowledgeable, Efficient Techs

Nov 30, 2023 | Community, Diversity and Inclusion, Featured

The first cohort of six students graduated from the Mount Sinai Health System Pharmacy Technician Training Program. The students holding certificates are, from left: Christian Cuatlal-Zempoalteca, Jacqueline Pierce, Millagros Verdejo, and Ekelly Huntley. They are joined by, from left, Irina Usherenko, PharmD MBA; Elone Winston, MPH, CPhT; Susan Mashni, PharmD, BCPS; John Ugbogbo, MS, RPh; and Brian Radbill, MD. Students Oprah Reid and Aishatou Coulibaly are not shown.

Pharmacy technicians serve as crucial team members who work alongside pharmacists to maximize the pharmacist’s scope and efficiency.

As technology and training have evolved, technicians have taken a more significant leadership role in hospital pharmacy operations. However, there is a severe shortage of qualified pharmacy technicians across the country.

To address the issue, the Mount Sinai Health System Pharmacy Technician Training Program launched earlier this year with support from Susan Mashni, PharmD, BCPS, Senior Vice President and Chief Pharmacy Officer, Mount Sinai Health System.

The program was begun under the leadership of Irina Usherenko, PharmD, MBA, Vice President, Pharmacy, Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West, and Elone V. Winston, MPH, CPhT, Project Manager II, Mount Sinai Health System.

“We want to fill the pharmacy tech vacancies from within the Health System while providing career advancement opportunities to our Mount Sinai colleagues. Our goal is to fill those vacancies with the best trained, most qualified personnel,” said Dr. Usherenko. “Specifically, we need certified pharmacy techs who are registered and licensed in New York State and have hospital-based training or experience.”

To do that, they decided to create a comprehensive training program that would be accredited by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP).

“There are only four other ASHP-accredited programs in New York State,” said Mr. Winston. “We designed a program with didactic, simulation, and onsite rotations. It is what is necessary so that pharmacy technicians are prepared to work in a complex environment that operates 24/7.”

The first cohort of six students graduated in September. Students were recruited from Strive NYC and the Manhattan Educational Opportunity Center (MEOC)—organizations focused on providing pathways to life-changing careers that provide financial empowerment and stability.

Each student completed more than 400 hours of intense study that includes online classroom work, time in a simulation lab, and hands-on experience in the Mount Sinai Morningside pharmacy. The online topics included basic anatomy and physiology and pharmaceutical terminology. In the simulation lab, students learned about dispensing and filling prescriptions, sterile compounding, and hazardous medications. They also gained experience working in retail and hospital pharmacies.

The students must pass a certification exam before applying for licensure and registration. Once that is achieved, the technicians are ready to work in a hospital environment with a starting salary of close to $70,000 per year.

The training for the first cohort was provided tuition free, and the students were given a small stipend during their experiential phase of the training.

The next group of students is being recruited from existing hospital staff including Environmental Services, Throughput, Patient Accounts, and the Emergency Department. The 1199 Training Fund will support these students and they will continue to work part-time during the training program. There were more than 400 applicants for 15 spots.

To learn more, contact PharmTechTraining@mountsinai.org.