Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Inside, Your Health
Brad Beckstrom, second from left, and Daniel Reyes, Deputy Executive Director, New York Common Pantry, far right, distribute food to Ramona Perez, left, and Jose Martell at the Bonifacio Cora Texidor Senior Center.
The New York Common Pantry (NYCP), which has the long-standing support of the Mount Sinai Health System, recently began delivering nutritionally balanced food directly to community providers that serve or house senior citizens. Ultimately, about 13,500 seniors a month will receive food through this new program. NYCP already provides hot meals and support services to more than 49,000 individuals a year at the organization’s 8 East 109th Street site. Brad Beckstrom, Senior Director of Government and Community Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System, who serves on the NYCP Board of Directors, says, “We strongly believe in the mission of the New York Common Pantry and provide financial support, give turkeys and hams at Thanksgiving and Christmas, partner with them on promoting healthy eating, and distribute coupons for shopping at the green markets. Many Mount Sinai volunteers also offer their services.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Inside, School, Your Health
At the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, Liberia, health officials, doctors, residents, and medical students gathered for grand rounds on the importance of research that were presented by Mount Sinai’s OBGYN team.
After suspending travel to Liberia during the largest outbreak of Ebola in history, faculty at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai resumed their teaching trips to the West African country last fall, with renewed efforts to improve women’s health.
Led by Ann Marie Beddoe, MD, Assistant Professor, Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science, members of the Mount Sinai community have undertaken several initiatives in Liberia since they began working there in 2008. They are helping to train the country’s first residents in obstetrics and gynecology and have applied for a grant from the National Institutes of Health to help build a cancer center. They have also trained nurses to conduct human papillomavirus (HPV) screenings and counsel patients. (more…)
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Inside, School, Your Health
The Mount Sinai Genetic Testing Laboratory’s Executive Director, Lisa Edelmann, PhD, left, and Director, Ruth Kornreich, PhD
The Mount Sinai Genetic Testing Laboratory in January introduced a new panel of comprehensive pan-ethnic carrier screening tests for 281 genetic disorders, the largest currently available. Mount Sinai’s NextStep Carrier Screening also includes the most comprehensive panel of tests for 96 diseases found in the Ashkenazi Jewish population and is the first of its kind to address the largely overlooked needs of the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish populations.
“Building on years of in-house genetic research and technology adaptation in our clinical laboratory, we created tests that not only expand the number of diseases screened, but also increase the breadth of coverage, to improve carrier detection rates and provide more accurate residual risk estimates to patients,” says Lisa Edelmann, PhD, Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Genetic Testing Laboratory within the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences. (more…)
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Inside, Patient Stories, Your Health
From left: Nadir Aslam; Kristin Olson; Andrea Wolf, MD; and Andrew Kaufman, MD
Kristin Olson and Nadir Aslam, professional musicians who met when they were treated for recurrent spontaneous pneumothorax (collapsed lung) at The Mount Sinai Hospital in August 2015, ardently believe in the power of music to soothe and heal. After treatment, they asked their surgeons—Andrea Wolf, MD, and Andrew Kaufman, MD, both Assistant Professors of Thoracic Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai—if they could perform free baroque chamber music concerts for staff, patients, and visitors. Ms. Olson, an oboist, and Mr. Aslam, a violinist, have since given two performances with guest musicians in the Guggenheim Pavilion, and now are working with the Mount Sinai Department of Volunteer Services to start a regular series of concerts.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Inside, Your Health
From left: Jay Aldieri, Regional Director of Food and Nutrition Services, Mount Sinai Health System; Nympha Meindel, RN, Chief Administrative Officer, Mount Sinai Beth Israel; and Susan Somerville, RN, President, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, at the ribbon-cutting for Who’s on First?
Mount Sinai Beth Israel’s new café—Who’s on First?—opened in December with an expanded menu that for the first time includes non-kosher as well as kosher food options, a “Cuisine of the Day” station, weekly specials, a salad bar, hot food bar, and a “Grab & Go” section. Located in the Linsky Lobby of the hospital’s main entrance at 280 First Avenue—the same location as the previous cafeteria—Who’s on First? is open 7 am to 7 pm, seven days a week. Four hundred employees participated in a contest to name the new café. The winning entry was from Lydia E. Hosbach, Administrative Assistant, Patient Representative Department, who received a 32-inch flat-screen TV.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Inside, Your Health
From left: Deirdre Varona, Director, Environmental Service and Linen; Hoda Farghaly, Patient Ambassador, Environmental Service; Regina Censullo, MBA, Consultant, Labor Management Project; Caryn A. Schwab; Judy Trilivas, RN, MA, Vice President, Operations; Kyeong-Hwa Kim, RN, Clinical Nurse Manager; Claudine Brown, RN, Clinical Nurse Manager; and Kara Gelb, Consultant
Mount Sinai Queens was recently named a 2015 Success Story Award® winner—one of only 15 recipients nationwide—by Press Ganey Associates, Inc., for measurably improving the patient experience. The award recognized sustained improvements over the last three years in several areas, including nursing communications, responsiveness, cleanliness, and pain management. Caryn A. Schwab, Executive Director, Mount Sinai Queens, attributes this success to the “Mount Sinai Queens Way”—a culture of caring that emphasizes listening to patients and colleagues, acting on patient feedback, and always making patient care the top priority—that was developed from surveys asking staff to describe Mount Sinai Queens. Responses such as, “kind-hearted” and “team players” became the foundation of the “Mount Sinai Queens Way.”
