The first cohort of the Mount Sinai Health System’s Administrative Fellows Program: from left: Christina Cellante, MHA; Elizabeth Alago, MPH; Michelle Kang, MHA; and Jean-Luc Coletta, MHA.
With broad support from system leadership, the Office for Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) launched a postgraduate program to build a pipeline to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in health care administration. ODI recruited fellows from a competitive pool of applicants who were recent recipients of master’s degrees, assigning two fellows each to Mount Sinai Beth Israel and Mount Sinai St. Luke’s. In June, ODI hosted a celebration as the first cohort of Administrative Fellows completed their rewarding experience.
“We initiated this leadership development program specifically to address advancing leadership diversity as one of our primary goals of the Mount Sinai Health System,” said Pamela Y. Abner, MPA, Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of the Office for Diversity and Inclusion, at the graduation ceremony held in June at Mount Sinai’s Corporate Services Center.
The four administrative fellows served rotations that varied in length from several weeks to several months, learning from senior leadership preceptors and taking on projects such as setting up a gym for employees, training staff on the EPIC records system, and coordinating the relocation of clinics. “We were able to work on projects from day one, and see them grow into reality,” said Michelle Kang, MHA, who was a fellow at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s.
Arthur A. Gianelli, MPH, President, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s, referred to the fellows as “dynamic” and said the program sent an important message. “When you have diversity in the leadership ranks—in gender, or in background, or in ethnicities and cultures—it really does make the organization better at taking care of the diverse patients we see each and every day.”
The fellows— Elizabeth Alago, MPH; Christina Cellante, MHA; and Jean-Luc Coletta, MHA; and Michelle Kang, MHA— have moved into managerial and coordinator positions across the System. Two fellows are currently in their second year of the program while six new fellows joined the health system in July. The program in 2019 will expand to two corporate services departments–Information Technology and Real Estate Services and Facilities.
At the celebration, Christopher Berner, Vice President, Human Resources, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, congratulated the fellows and thanked the many managers present for “really embracing the fellows from the start.”
Mr. Berner told the fellows, “A mark of your success is that yesterday in the emergency room, two doctors came to me and said, ‘We would really like an administrative fellow. When can we get an administrative fellow?’ Two years ago they wouldn’t have said that.”