Mar 6, 2017 | Community, Featured
Arthur Klein, President of the Mount Sinai Health Network
The Mount Sinai Health System and CityMD have launched a joint collaboration to enhance and expand urgent care services throughout New York City, a partnership that will combine Mount Sinai’s vast network of providers and CityMD’s urgent and clinical care management expertise to create a unique model of timely access to health care.
Significantly, the relationship allows CityMD patients access to Mount Sinai providers, when needed, for prompt follow-up care with a primary care physician or a specialist for further treatment or management of chronic conditions. Provider access includes all Health System hospitals, faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and other Mount Sinai-associated physicians.
Says Arthur Klein, President of the Mount Sinai Health Network: “This collaboration will establish a more comprehensive model that meets the full spectrum of health care needs of patients throughout the city. We look forward to achieving significant milestones with CityMD.”
The partnership also provides an added benefit to Health System staff enrolled in a Mount Sinai health plan. As a member of the Health System network, CityMD is now a “top tier” provider in the employee health plan. Enrolled employees will have zero or lower copays, depending on their plan, as well as no deductibles, when receiving care from a CityMD practice. Founded in 2010, CityMD now has more than 50 practice locations in the tri-state area.
Under the collaboration, both parties will also share electronic medical records and establish quality metrics to further improve patient outcomes and reduce health care costs.
Mar 6, 2017 | Featured, Research
Study authors include, from left: Miriam Merad, MD, PhD; graduate student Aleksey Chudnovskiy; and Veronika Kana, postdoctoral fellow, MD, PhD.
The discovery of a novel type of microbe found in laboratory mice at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has shed new light on the existence of similar organisms in humans, which may help boost the immune system and protect against food-borne toxins, such as salmonella.
Scientists led by Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, Director of the Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine, described the discovery of the mouse microbe—called Tritrichomonas musculis (T. mu)—in the October 6, 2016, issue of Cell. Their findings suggest that a previously unknown set of single-cell organisms, or protists, which belong to a different biological classification than bacteria, live in the guts of mice and influence their immune system.
The significance of the Mount Sinai study was featured in a subsequent blog by Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, Director of the National Institutes of Health, who commented: “Recently, we humans have started to pay a lot more attention to the legions of bacteria that live on and in our bodies because of research that’s shown us the many important roles they play in everything, from how we efficiently metabolize food to how well we fend off disease. As it turns out, bacteria may not be the only interior bugs with the power to influence our biology positively.”
Prior to the new findings, scientists considered protists similar to T. mu to be disease-carrying parasites. In fact, T. mu seemed to increase the number of tumors in mice with a genetic susceptibility for colon cancer and it increased weight loss and tissue damage in mice with preexisting inflammatory disease. But, the inflammation caused by a rapid increase in immune cells—dendritic and T cells—brought about by T. mu, led to beneficial results for mice, overall.
“Protists probably aren’t all bad when it comes to our health,” according to Dr. Collins. “As in the laboratory mice, they may afford us with extra immune protection, which could be especially beneficial for those living in parts of the world where infectious disease is an ever-present threat.”
Mount Sinai’s scientific team also included investigators from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá, Colombia. The study found that humans from around the world harbor a related microbe, Dientamoeba fragilis (D. fragilis). This protist—taken from the fecal samples from people in South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia—has been associated with irritable bowel syndrome, but its effects are not completely clear.
The scientists theorized that the absence of this microbe could also explain why some people are more susceptible to certain infections than others. In recent years, advances in DNA sequencing technologies have enabled scientists to identify and study previously unknown microbes that could not be studied in traditional laboratories for various reasons. This new field of study of the human microbiome aims to characterize these microbes and understand their role in supporting health and triggering disease.
“The most important result in this study is the finding that a nonbacterial bug in our flora could potentially protect from severe intestinal infections,” says Dr. Merad. “This illustrates the need to study non-bacterial species of the microbiome, including protists, which remain very prominent in the developing world.” Further study, she adds, will likely identify novel “crosstalks” or interactions between the microbiome and immune cells that impact health and disease.
Mar 1, 2017 | Community, Featured
Sander S. Florman, MD, Director of The Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai
The Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai is now offering complete transplant evaluation services at the Mount Sinai Doctors Long Island Five Towns practice in Hewlett, N.Y. At this new satellite practice, adult patients who need a liver or kidney transplant can be seen by an entire multidisciplinary transplant team from Mount Sinai. All aspects of transplant care except for the actual operation can now take place locally, providing convenience for patients as well as confidence that they are being cared for by a highly experienced team of experts.
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Learn more about The Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured, Insights
About 2 million people in New York could lose coverage if funding to expand Medicaid eligibility ended, David Reich, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer of The Mount Sinai Hospital, tells The Lancet. If that happens, Reich said “we lose our ability to use the new and innovative programs” the ACA facilitates. The ACA has started to move the health-care delivery system “toward one that’s preventive in nature rather than reactive and disease-based,” he said. Provided in outpatient settings, preventive care saves money and keeps patients healthy.
Read the article
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Research
An early-stage clinical trial has found that, compared to a placebo, a novel medication significantly reduces potentially life-threatening episodes of swelling of the airway as well as the hands, feet, and abdomen of patients affected by a rare genetic disorder. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Read the news release or watch the video.
Read additional news coverage in Science Daily.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Patient Stories
After giving birth to her first child, Melinda Constantine was diagnosed with a rare type of heart failure that can happen during pregnancy or right after delivery. Under the care of Anelechi Anyanwu, MD, Surgical Director of the Mechanical Circulatory Support and Heart Transplant Program, and Sean P. Pinney, MD, Director of Heart Failure and Transplantation at Mount Sinai Heart, Melinda now has a mechanical pump and has been able to return to normal life.
Watch the video
