U.S. News & World Report has recognized Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside as a high-performing hospital in several categories this year, showcasing the level of clinical prowess and patient-centered care the facility provides to patients.
The report specifically singled out the hospital’s excellent outcomes in colon cancer surgery, exemplifying the detail of clinical care its employees provide.
Mount Sinai’s patient-centered nursing is Magnet-recognized by the American Nurses Credentialing Center for its rigorous standards. Magnet Recognition signifies excellence in nursing services and is a prestigious designation for hospitals. The hospital uses a constant quality improvement paradigm in its care for patients, according to the hospital’s president, Dr. Adhi Sharma.
“We look at all of our quality metrics,” Sharma said. “And it’s a stop-light type of report card: green, yellow, red … Any area that’s not green, we try to understand (a) why it’s not green, and (b) what it will take to get to green. Then we create an initiative around that, and work towards that success.”
Sharma explained that these initiatives involve very little training, and they’re more about educating the hospital employees, and improving the data sets that patient treatments are based on.
“So as you’re improving, the old data falls off, and they are able to now assess the most recent data sets,” Sharma said.
Each initiative is designed to educate doctors, residents and nurses on best practices and what needs improvement — and they take it from there.
“Then it’s whether we set up all of the guardrails and parameters that keep patients safe,” Sharma said. “So when we do that, we do education, we redesign the electronic medical records, create ordered sets to make sure we capture all of the important elements in treating that type of a disease.”
Dr. Rajiv Datta, chair of the department of surgery, spoke about the hospital’s success rate with colon cancer surgery.
“The colon cancer treatment, whether from diagnosis, to surgery, to outcomes of surgery, with the timing of chemotherapy, the type of chemotherapy — all have multiple factors which need to be followed to get the good outcomes,” Datta said. “So this is based on evidence-based research.”
The specificity of surgery and its accompanying treatment placed the hospital into its high-performing category.
“We see that the patient gets the best survival outcome — not only the immediate outcome, but survival,” Datta said.
Quality care and innovation have helped improve upon these surgical procedures, hospital administrators said.
“We have a robot which helps with better removal of specimens,” Datta said. “(Also our) alliance with the Mount Sinai health system, so we can get more technology here with us, to have better qualified physicians who are board certified and doing these technical things. So it’s a combination of multiple factors which has improved this.”
In addition to colon cancer surgery, the new areas U.S. News gave the hospital high marks for included treatment of diabetes, hip fracture and leukemia/lymphoma/myeloma. It also received repeated recognition as high performing in the areas of COPD, heart attack, heart failure, kidney failure, maternity and pneumonia.
One grateful patient, Carmelle Manigat, who delivered her baby after a high-risk pregnancy, spoke about her experience on July 29.
“From the moment I arrived, I felt supported, cared for and respected,” Manigat said. “Everyone I encountered was not only exceptionally skilled and attentive, but also kind, compassionate and reassuring throughout the entire process. Their calm presence and professionalism made all the difference in helping me feel comfortable and confident.”
For Manigat, it was also about including her in the process of her care.
“They explained everything to me,” Manigat said. “I felt comfortable with what they were doing, because I understood everything. I appreciated that a lot.”
As Chief Nursing Officer Stacey Conklin put it, it’s all about working with the patients.
“When we provide patient-centered care, we really get a good sense of what’s most important to the patients, what matters to them most,” Conklin said. “It helps us develop a plan of care that’s very individualized to the patient’s needs. It provides much better outcomes for patient care, and results in things like this where you get recognized for excellence. And the excellence comes from partnership with patients’ families and the staff at the hospital.”
Conklin emphasized the value hospital staff place in recognition like this.
“These recognitions, where outside agencies, people that don’t see and work with them every day, but understand that the impact that they have is far-reaching, really helps to motivate staff, make them feel good about what they do, make them want to come back and do those great things for all the patients that we take care of every single day,” Conklin said.
Sharma said he and his team often debate whether outside recognition like this makes a difference in patient choice and trust.
“Hopefully, it helps patients feel more comfortable when they do come here,” Sharma said. “I don’t think it drives any one patient to any one hospital. But hopefully it makes them understand that they’re making the right choice.”
