Jeffrey Glassberg
, MD, MA, Associate Director, Mount Sinai Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, talks about a specialized clinic for treating sickle cell disease.
“Very often people with sickle cell disease, especially if they don’t have good access to a sickle cell clinic, will wind up in the emergency department because they’re in excruciating pain. Now that we have this comprehensive program, we’re trying to do things to make sure that patients have what they need so that maybe they don’t come to the emergency department,” he says. “We do infusions in an outpatient setting where people can come in, get some pain medicine….Preventive care costs less, but the patient is still getting better care, living healthier. In New York City, we have the largest sickle cell population of any city in the United States. But in terms of really comprehensive clinics, there aren’t many.”