Friday, January 17, 2025
Nassau University Medical Center will begin 2025 with women holding three of its top leadership positions.
The East Meadow-based hospital’s board of directors appointed Megan Ryan as president and chief executive, Dr. Grace Ting as chief medical officer and Shannon Costello as chief nursing officer during its Dec. 5 meeting. All three executives previously served in these roles on an interim basis and have extensive experience at NUMC.
The leaders discussed their long-standing connections to the hospital, their career journeys at NUMC, and their visions for the institution as they formally step into their administrative roles.
Their backgrounds
Ryan, an accomplished attorney in the private sector, who is admitted to the New York State Bar Association and the U.S. Supreme Court Association, began her career in health care as the chief compliance officer for the Nassau Queens Performing Provider System, before becoming general counsel at NUMC seven years ago.
Prior to working at NUMC, Ryan served as an in-house corporate counsel for Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. She was named interim president and chief executive in January of 2024, a position she helped the hospital flourish in, until her appointment in December. Ryan will continue serving as general counsel.
Ting began her career at NUMC as an attending physician in the hospital’s emergency department, later becoming one of the associate directors for operations in the emergency department. Having served on various committees, Ting was named NUMC’s interim chief medical officer in 2022.
Costello, both an executive vice president and the chief nursing officer, started her professional career as a critical care nurse at NUMC in 2006. Through that position, she discovered a passion for teaching and education, she said, which led to her role as a critical care nurse educator in 2018, in which she oversaw multiple units at the hospital including the intensive care unit, special procedures unit and burn unit, among many others. Costello was named NUMC’s deputy nursing officer in January of last year and promoted to the interim chief nursing officer in May.
What working at NUMC meant to them
Before she was a registered nurse, Costello said she completed her clinical rotation at NUMC while still in nursing school.
“This is where I learned to love nursing,” she said, “and this is where I learned about the mission of the hospital and the values here. I got to experience the work firsthand and all the wonderful people that work here. And that’s what led me, after graduation, to seek an opportunity here.”
NUMC is Nassau County’s only public hospital, which serves as a safety net for medical care, providing services for the uninsured and vulnerable patients. The hospital provides care for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.
“I was lucky enough to be one of the first student groups, first out of school, that they allowed to work in critical care,” Costello said. “And I had a wonderful experience in terms of being educated and being taught in that very specialized area of nursing.”
NUMC is a teaching hospital, Costello said, but it also provides services that you won’t see in other facilities. From a water birthing suite in the hospital’s maternity ward, to being a regional leader in hyperbaric medicine, Costello said NUMC is a vital institution.
“What drew me here was the mission of the hospital,” Ting said, “in serving our patients, the people that can’t afford to pay, as a doctor in the emergency department. That is a really integral part of what we do.”
There’s a camaraderie among NUMC’s staff, Ting added.
“We work really hard and we develop relationships,” she said. “You go home, and the next day you come in and you’re happy, and I was happy to come in.”
The appointments come at a crucial time for NUMC, which has faced years of financial instability and management challenges. Under Ryan’s interim leadership over the past year, the hospital has made significant strides in strengthening its financial position and quality of care. Over the last five years, the hospital has not received hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding that it needs to survive.
“Our reputation hasn’t been very good and it’s unfair,” Ting said. “We’re trying to change the culture — change our reputation. I think we’re doing that. Our scores are better, our quality is better. We have real leadership, and yet we’re having so much trouble receiving funding from the state.”
Ryan said she took a “leap of faith” entering health care, but said her role really began to change at NUMC after the coronavirus pandemic. “I wasn’t the lawyer that was writing contracts or reviewing things or telling people no,” she said. “I was you know, doing the fundraising, and then I was going to all the different floors to see what they needed. I will be the first to say I’m not clinical — I leave the clinical stuff to the clinicians — but it was nice to work together.”
Her leadership role at NUMC has cemented the belief that the hospital’s role in Nassau County is vital.
“I get frustrated when people are like ‘it’s a poor person’s hospital,’” she said. “As a Catholic, I love our mission. We treat everyone, regardless of their ability to pay — it is a saintly thing to do. It is a moral thing to do.”
The hospital’s administration, she said, is poised to help NUMC succeed.
“These are all people that have their hearts in this place,” Ryan said, “and they’re experts in their field.
NUMC’s future
Ryan said her goals have always been clear. She wants to work with New York state as a partner in healthcare. For the first time in years, NUMC’s staff rallied in Albany last March with local legislators, advocating for the funding it needs to thrive.
Ryan said she feels committed to the hospital’s 3,600 employees and the broader Long Island community. Looking ahead, hospital departments are working on sustainability plans, Ryan said, so the administration at NUMC can best assess needs across the board and roll out plans to help every part of the hospital succeed.
NUMC has named new department heads in different health care sectors> The hospital is getting its finances in order with its chief financial executive, Perry Sham, and is working on increasing its visibility and outreach in the communities it serves.
“I think it’s still going to be a year of transition and growth,” Ryan said of 2025. “There is a lot of work to be done.”
“The team that has been assembled by Megan over this last year — everyone is invested,” Costello said. “Everyone is dedicated to this facility and to the mission of the hospital. It’s all of us working together, and we all have the same goals in mind.”
