Martha Stewart in her new white coat, with R. Sean Morrison, MD, the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Chair of the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
With a significant gift from the lifestyle mogul Martha Stewart, the Mount Sinai Health System has expanded its successful model of care for older adults by opening the Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai-Union Square. The Center, at 10 Union Square, joins the Martha Stewart Center for Living at The Mount Sinai Hospital, which opened in 2007. The goal of both centers is to ensure the best quality of life for adults aged 65 and older, who by 2030 will outnumber people under age 18 in the United States.
At the ribbon-cutting for the facility on Wednesday, June 26, Ms. Stewart received a monogrammed white coat and was named an honorary faculty member of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and she jokingly volunteered to teach nutrition and yoga. “Through our partnership, Mount Sinai has established a pioneering model of comprehensive care for older adults and their loved ones,” Ms. Stewart said at the event, which was also attended by New York City and State lawmakers, and leaders of the Mount Sinai Health System.
“With the opening of this new Center, that level of optimal care is available for even more New Yorkers.” Americans can expect to live an average 20 years after age 65, said R. Sean Morrison, MD, the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Chair of the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “We need models of health care delivery to better meet the needs of our aging population,” he said.
With the goal of comprehensive, one-stop care, the new Center offers patients access to specialists from more than 20 disciplines, including cardiology, gastroenterology, cancer, dermatology, orthopedics, and rheumatology, as well as radiology, pharmacy, and physical therapy services. In addition, the Center will provide free services, including tai chi and yoga classes, music therapy, nutrition planning, and fall prevention programs.
At the Martha Stewart Center for Living at The Mount Sinai Hospital, this model of holistic care has led to patients experiencing half as many emergency room visits as other older adults, shorter hospital stays when admitted, and 50 percent fewer readmissions after hospitalization. “We are so very grateful to Ms. Stewart,” Dr. Morrison said. “Her personal philanthropy, her willingness to engage in our shared mission to improve care for older adults, and her advice and expertise in healthy living have been instrumental in creating centers that see and treat the needs of the whole person—the medical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs—and are serving as a training center for the next generation of health care professionals.”
Ms. Stewart said her own role model was her mother, known to all as “Big Martha,” who remained active for most of her 93 years, with a wide circle of friends and a lifelong sense of curiosity and joy. “I wrote a book called Living the Good Long Life, and that outlines very clearly how I have negotiated getting older,” said Ms. Stewart, age 78. “I am lucky that I have a full-time job—more than full-time. I live on a farm and commute to New York City, I ride horses, I raise all kinds of vegetables and fruits, I travel as much as I can, learning about all kinds of things.”
Support for the Centers for Living runs deep in Ms. Stewart’s family. The first Center was inspired by Ms. Stewart’s daughter, Alexis Stewart, who was impressed with Mount Sinai’s geriatric practice, and it was dedicated to Ms. Stewart’s mother. The new Martha Stewart Center for Living at Mount Sinai-Union Square is dedicated to Ms. Stewart’s grandchildren, Jude and Truman.
Ms. Stewart said that people often ask when she wants to retire, but she has no plans to. “I don’t ever want to think of the aging process as getting old, I just want to think of it as living as well as I can, as long as I possibly can,” she said. “And that is the goal of the Centers for Living, too.”
Martha Stewart cutting the ribbon at the Center with, from left, State Assembly Member Harvey Epstein; State Senator Brad Hoylman; R. Sean Morrison, MD, the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Chair of the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; State Assembly Member Richard N. Gottfried; William Abramson, Co-Chair of the Union Square Partnership; Taylor Abbruzzese, aide to Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney; and Katherine Madden, Associate Director of Communications, Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine.