Updated on Feb 21, 2018 | Community, Featured
At the ribbon-cutting, from left: Arthur Klein, MD; Kenneth L. Davis, MD; Peter W. May, Chairman, Boards of Trustees, Mount Sinai Health System; Alicia Gresham, Vice President, Mount Sinai Network Operations; Gonzalo Loveday, MD; and Michael McCloskey, President, FRI Management.
The opening of a multispecialty practice in Florida—Mount Sinai Doctors Palm Beach—was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting on Monday, January 29, signaling a broadened commitment by the Mount Sinai Health System to offer expert health care throughout South Florida.
“This is a significant step in expanding the reach of Mount Sinai New York’s high-quality care in South Florida,” says Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System. “Residents of Palm Beach County and patients who travel between Florida and New York now have streamlined access to care from Mount Sinai’s outstanding physicians in a broad array of specialties.”
The Palm Beach practice offers primary care, cardiology, gastroenterology, and ophthalmology services, as well as same-day and next-day appointments, and 24-hour on-call access to specialists.
“The staff and clinical leadership at Mount Sinai Doctors Palm Beach have been carefully chosen from a large pool of national applicants,” says Arthur Klein, MD, President of the Mount Sinai Health Network. “We are proud to provide the resources of our nationally and internationally recognized academic health care system to benefit the residents and businesses of Palm Beach County.” The physician staff will be led by prominent cardiovascular specialist Gonzalo Loveday, MD.
This newest practice builds on the success of Mount Sinai Heart New York Palm Beach, and on a partnership between Mount Sinai and the Jupiter Medical Center, both providing high-quality care in cardiology since 2015. Mount Sinai Doctors Palm Beach is located at 625 N. Flagler Drive, Mezzanine Level, West Palm Beach. To schedule an appointment, call 561-268-2000.
Updated on Oct 14, 2019 | Community, Featured, Your Health
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. women ages 40 and older have had a mammogram during the past two years, but significant economic, cultural, and social barriers prevent many in New York City from taking advantage of this important breast cancer detection tool. According to the American Cancer Society and the Avon Foundation, only 47 percent of Latinas and 55 percent of black woman have an annual mammogram, while black women are 43 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than their white counterparts.
The Mount Sinai Health System is determined to improve those numbers through a new mobile mammography program that will provide up to 30 mammograms a day in a specially designed van that will visit women in their communities. The program is part of an early breast cancer awareness and detection initiative that was launched by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2016, with the goal of increasing by 10 percent the number of women screened by 2020. Mount Sinai won a competitive grant as part of the program and will receive more than $4 million from the state over three years to purchase and operate the mammography van.
“We’re really excited about the prospect of having a big impact on women’s health care by identifying women who can benefit from early breast cancer detection,” says Laurie Margolies, MD, Chief for Breast Imaging at the Mount Sinai Health System, and Medical Director for the mobile mammography screening initiative.
“Our program has a heavy educational component, and we’re gearing up to go to churches, synagogues, mosques, community centers, and other places where we’re invited to talk to women about breast health and how mammography can increase their chances of surviving breast cancer if they are diagnosed with the disease.” At these sessions, held several weeks in advance of the van’s appearance, women will be encouraged to sign up for mammography and assisted in making and keeping their appointments.
Prescheduled visits to health clinics, storefronts, and community and faith-based centers will begin this summer, with a focus on neighborhoods known to have the highest poverty and associated poor health outcomes. Available to women ages 40 and older, the Mount Sinai mobile van will offer digital breast tomosynthesis (3D mammography). According to Dr. Margolies, 3D mammography does not expose patients to higher doses of radiation and has been shown to decrease patient call-back rates by as much as 40 percent.
The specially marked van will leave The Mount Sinai Hospital up to seven days a week and screen women from 9 am to 7 pm. The van will carry mammography technologists and a patient navigator. The driver will also serve as the registrar. All images will be downloaded when the van returns at night, and read over the next 48 hours by one of Mount Sinai’s 13 full-time breast imagers. Women with abnormal mammograms will be called within five days to arrange for appropriate follow-ups, and patients will have free and secure access to their electronic records through Mount Sinai’s MyChart system.
The mobile van staff at Mount Sinai are collaborating with the New York State Cancer Services Program, a statewide program that provides free breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening, to enroll eligible women who do not have health insurance or who may be underinsured into the program.
Updated on Feb 21, 2018 | Featured, Research, Your Health
From left: Eric Schadt, PhD; Leena Nasser, Executive Director, Chopra Institute; Deepak Chopra, MD; Dennis S. Charney, MD; Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh; and David L. Reich, MD.
Can meditation and other forms of alternative medicine be used in conjunction with traditional treatments to improve overall physiological and psychological health and well-being? This was a topic for brainstorming between best-selling author Deepak Chopra, MD, and basic science researchers and physician-scientists who attended a meeting hosted by Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh, the Kyung Hyun Kim, MD Chair in Urology, Mount Sinai Health System.
The researchers, who were from the Department of Urology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, joined Dr. Chopra, a pioneer in integrative medicine and co-founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, to discuss their mutual interest in the study of the mind-body connection. Also attending were: Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System; David L. Reich, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer, The Mount Sinai Hospital; and Eric Schadt, PhD, Dean for Precision Medicine, and the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics.
One topic they explored was to study, in a clinical setting, whether mind-body intervention through meditation and other practices such as yoga reduces inflammation and thus prostate cancer progression. In 2016, Dr. Schadt led a study with researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, and Harvard Medical School that assessed the biological impact of meditation. The study, which appeared in Translational Psychiatry and was partially funded by the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, found that meditation could ease stress and benefit the immune system.
Updated on Feb 8, 2018 | Community, Featured
Julie Seltzer receives a check-up from Elizabeth Choi, DO, in the new Stuyvesant Town facility.
The Mount Sinai Health System has opened two new practices, one in Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan and the other in the Dumbo neighborhood in Brooklyn, both of which will enhance the ability of New Yorkers to access quality health care services
close to where they live and work.
“I like to think of our Mount Sinai Doctors Stuyvesant Town facility as a small-town medical practice within a large urban environment,” says Kelly Cassano, DO, Chief of Ambulatory Care at Mount Sinai Beth Israel. “This is a place where patients of all ages, from infants to the elderly, will find a family doctor who will establish a long-term relationship with them, with the aim of keeping them healthy.”
Stuyvesant Town patient Sushila Patel with Freddie C. Verzosa, MD, MPH, at the new location at 518 East 20th Street.
On Thursday, January 11, a few weeks after the practice opened its doors to patients, community leaders from Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village gathered with representatives from the Mount Sinai Health System at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. On the same day, the practice held an open house for members of the community, who received free flu shots and snacks, and hosted arts and crafts activities for children.
The practice is a key addition to Mount Sinai’s presence in downtown Manhattan. It will have a full-time staff of family medicine physicians, and offer sessional care in orthopedics, dermatology, podiatry, and other specialties, as well as longitudinal primary care, walk-in care, and specialty care.
“Our goal is to keep people healthy and out of the hospital by providing compassionate, continuous, and coordinated care closer to home,” says Jeremy Boal, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, Mount Sinai Health System, and President, Mount Sinai Downtown. “That is the most important premise behind the new Mount Sinai Beth Israel and investment downtown.”
Rick Hayduk, Chief Executive Officer and General Manager at StuyTown Property Services, which manages the residential property, says the facility is a welcome addition to the community. “The opening of this practice means residents can easily access Mount Sinai’s high quality medical care. We are pleased to welcome this quality-of-life improvement for those who live and work in our community.”
Staff at the Dumbo location, from left: Judah Fierstein, MD; Catherine Lopez; Amanda Magli; Ernesto Bodur; and Hillary Moritz. The facility is located at 110 York Street, Second Floor.
At the Mount Sinai Health System’s newest Urgent Care center in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood—located between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges—Mount Sinai leaders joined representatives from local businesses for their ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, January 25. The practice features five exam rooms, onsite X-ray services, and extended hours with no appointment needed.
The Dumbo facility is expected to serve neighborhood residents, and employees who work in many of the start-ups and technology companies that are now located in the area. The new Urgent Care center joins similar Mount Sinai practices in Inwood, the Upper West Side, Union Square, and in nearby Brooklyn Heights.
Judah Fierstein, MD, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Medical Director of Mount Sinai Doctors Urgent Care, says patients at the Dumbo location will have access to the resources of the Mount Sinai Health System if they need follow-up care. Additionally, Mount Sinai’s practice in Brooklyn Heights, staffed by more than a dozen different specialists, as well as urgent care specialists, is a 15-minute walk from Dumbo.
“The Mount Sinai name stands for compassionate care of the highest order,” says Burton Drayer, MD, Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice, Dean for Clinical Affairs, and the Dr. Charles M. and Marilyn Newman Professor of Radiology, and Mount Sinai Health System Chair of the Department of Radiology. “That is exactly what New Yorkers who live or work in the neighborhood will find at the Mount Sinai Urgent Care practice in Dumbo.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured
South Nassau Communities Hospital will become the flagship hospital on Long Island for the Mount Sinai Health System under an affiliation agreement announced Wednesday, January 24, by the Boards of Trustees of the two institutions. Final state regulatory review is under way, and approvals are expected in the coming months.
A nonprofit medical center and 455-bed teaching hospital in Oceanside, South Nassau is a premier provider of health services to more than 900,000 residents on Long Island’s South Shore. It also operates the only Trauma Center on the South Shore of Nassau County, as well as Long Island’s only free-standing 911-receiving Emergency Department, in Long Beach. With 3,500 employees and 900 affiliated physicians, it is one of the few remaining independently controlled hospitals on Long Island.
If the affiliation is approved, South Nassau will become the eighth hospital campus within the Health System, which includes the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 300 ambulatory practices and other affiliated community health centers, and more than 6,500 physicians. Mount Sinai’s current Long Island footprint includes 200 physicians and other health care professionals at 11 practices who indicate they will embrace the affiliation.
Significantly, South Nassau will become a major clinical and academic affiliate of the Icahn School of Medicine. With Mount Sinai’s academic, clinical, and research expertise, South Nassau intends to offer advanced medical care to “rival and surpass any of those available on Long Island,” according to a joint document outlining the transaction.
“The addition of South Nassau to our Long Island network represents our commitment to broadening access to innovative treatment and research in this region,” says Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System. “We are thrilled about what this transformative partnership means for patients and families on Long Island.”
The two institutions signed a nonbinding letter of intent last May, when they began in earnest to explore clinical programs to enhance and expand patient care and services on Long Island.
“The clinical and administrative leadership of Mount Sinai and South Nassau have been working diligently and collaboratively over the last six months to establish the foundation of this very important relationship and opportunity,” says Arthur Klein, MD, President of the Mount Sinai Health Network. “We are already convinced about the wisdom and success of this partnership.”
As part of its commitment to Long Island, Mount Sinai intends to infuse a total of $120 million in capital contributions over a five-year period for capital projects to be mutually agreed upon.
Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center for outstanding nursing care, South Nassau also provides first-rate care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health, and emergency services.
Even before the affiliation was announced, South Nassau was on a path of growth and expansion. Plans are already under way to renovate and nearly double the size of the Emergency Department and to build a four-story facility in Oceanside, and to expand medical services in Long Beach.
“Joining the Mount Sinai Health System represents a unique, once-in-a-generation opportunity for all Long Islanders,” says Richard J. Murphy, South Nassau’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “South Nassau and Mount Sinai have a shared vision to improve services, especially on the South Shore, which is why this affiliation makes so much sense.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured
Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, with his co-chair, Jendayi Frazer, PhD.
Fourteen steps to strengthen the nation’s global-health programs were recommended in a recent report by the Committee on Global Health and the Future of the United States, which was co-chaired by Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital.
The special committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said that global health investment by the United States has long focused on the detection and treatment of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, with significant results. It found that while these efforts should be maintained, there is a pressing need to meet the challenge of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other noncommunicable diseases. The report, which was featured in an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine in September 2017, said that because of improved sanitation and prevention efforts, the burden of disease is shifting from infectious diseases to noncommunicable diseases.
“Chronic illnesses like heart disease and cancer continue to be a worldwide problem,” Dr. Fuster says. Cardiovascular disease was responsible for 18 million deaths in 2015, with the global cost expected to reach more than $1 trillion by 2030 in terms of treatment and loss of productivity. “The cost is huge, and we are not responding,” he says.
The committee was formed to provide “authoritative, independent, apolitical, evidence-based” recommendations, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. After eight months of research and deliberation, the committee published its 360-page report, Global Health and the Future Role of the United States, making recommendations in four priority areas:
- Ensuring global health security against infectious-disease pandemics
- Addressing communicable threats, like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis,and malaria
- Investing in women’s and children’s health
- Promoting cardiovascular health and preventing cancer.
The report’s recommendations on cardiovascular disease were the focus of a December 2017 article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The article noted that mortality due to CVD has been growing around the world, rising 12.5 percent between 2000 and 2015. And the increase was largely attributed to lower-middle-income countries, where 80 percent of all deaths related to cardiovascular disease occur.
The report cited “best buy” interventions for noncommunicable diseases that would cost $120 billion over 15 years but would drive a 10 percent decrease in CVD-attributable mortality and produce a $377 billion projected economic benefit due to increased productivity and lower health care costs. The interventions called for targeting risk factors with population-level measures, such as tax increases on tobacco and alcohol and point-of-service measures like counseling and drug therapy for people with a high risk of heart attacks.
The committee—co-chaired by Jendayi Frazer, PhD, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations—identified three “areas for action” to maximize the return on investments and achieve better health outcomes in its priority areas. They were: accelerating the development of medical products and digital health tools, employing more flexible financing to encourage new partners and funding, and maintaining the status of the United States as a leader in global health.
Investing in global health contributes significantly to economic prosperity and stability and creates more reliable and durable partners in the world, the report said, noting that 11 of the top 15 trading partners of the United States are former recipients of foreign aid. “The health and well-being of other countries directly and indirectly affect the health, safety, and economic security of Americans,” the report said. “The United States must preserve and extend its legacy as a global leader, partner, and innovator in global health through forward-looking policies, country and international partnerships, and most important, continued investment.”
