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Modern Healthcare Names NYC Health + Hospitals Chief Nurse Executive and President and CEO to "50 Most Influential Clinical Executives" List
Jun 17, 2020
NYC Health + Hospitals Chief Nurse Executive and Senior Vice President Natalia Cineas, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, and President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD, have been named to Modern Healthcare’s “50 Most Influential Clinical Executives” list. Dr. Cineas is recognized for overseeing the system’s 8,000 nurses, her efforts in recruiting and retaining nurses to the public health system, and successfully reaching a new contract with the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) that included wage increases and new nurse-to-patient ratios. Katz is recognized for his work in expanding access to primary care services, making the health system more financially stable, and for his leadership in combatting COVID-19, which included nearly tripling ICU capacity system-wide and helping to lead the city’s contact tracing efforts. Modern Healthcare’s”50 Most Influential Clinical Executives” program honors individuals in healthcare who are deemed by their peers and the magazine’s senior editors to be paving the way to better health through their executive responsibility, leadership qualities, innovation, and community service.
“I am fortunate to be in the company of such resilient, passionate nurses who work tirelessly as the backbone of our health system,” said NYC Health + Hospitals Chief Nurse Executive and Senior Vice President Natalia Cineas, DNP, RN, NEA-BC. “Recognitions like these would not be possible without the exceptional and fearless work our more than 8,000 nurses commit to every shift. Their standards for high-quality and comprehensive care only make me work harder to ensure they have the resources necessary to carrying out their responsibilities.”
“It’s always an honor to be recognized among my peers in healthcare, especially my close colleagues, like Dr. Cineas, who has helped make the City’s public health system as strong as it is today and played an instrumental role in our COVID-19-response, said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD. “Teamwork and collaboration have taken a new sense of importance in our everyday work at NYC Health + Hospitals as we continue to combat the lasting impacts of a global pandemic, which challenged every one of our healthcare heroes and made us a stronger system.”
As Chief Nurse Executive, Dr. Natalia Cineas is the leader of the more than 8,000 nurses at NYC Health + Hospitals since taking her post in March 2019. Dr. Cineas’s first order of business was to retain the nurses in the organization and recruit more. She almost immediately launched Nurse4NYC, a campaign focusing on four high-need specialty areas where nurses are needed the most: Emergency Room/Trauma; Ambulatory Care; Home Care; and Correctional Health Services/Behavioral Health.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Cineas helped redeploy nurses to the hardest hit hospitals, and recruit and deploy nearly 5,000 additional nurses to the system to help maintain safe patient-to-nurse ratios during the peak of the virus in New York City. Additional nurses were sourced through a number of staffing streams, including agencies, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Department of Defense, and volunteers. As part of the onboarding process, Dr. Cineas worked with others to streamline orientation and on-the-ground training, safely expediting the existing process.
Dr. Cineas is a board-certified Nurse Leader with more than 15 years in health care administration. She most recently served as Senior Director of Nursing and Deputy Chief Nursing Officer at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s. She began her career at Columbia University Medical Center New York Presbyterian Hospital where she served in various roles including the Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit, as a Quality Management Specialist for the Cardiothoracic Department, Care Director of Neurosurgery and the Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit.
Dr. Katz was appointed President and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals in January 2018. During this time, Dr. Katz has focused on advancing the transformation of the public health care system with numerous new initiatives to expand access to primary care services, reduce administrative costs, invest in more front-line clinical staff, and build financial stability. Fiscal year end 2019 results showed the health system was able to close 65 percent of its $1.8B structural gap through additional revenue, savings, managed care negotiations, and getting New Yorkers enrolled into insurance. In August 2019, NYC Care, a healthcare access program for New Yorkers who are not eligible for or cannot afford health insurance, launched in the Bronx under Dr. Katz’s stewardship.
Dr. Katz’s initial transformation strategy helped set the groundwork for the public health system to combat the challenges of the unprecedented global health crisis, COVID-19. Under his stewardship, the system was able to nearly triple its ICU capacity, stand-up a COVID-19-dedicated hotline to help mitigate dangerous overcrowding in the system’s emergency departments, transition nearly all existing appointments to telemedicine, and establish the city’s Test & Trace Corps. At the COVID-19 peak, there were more than 3,000 patients hospitalized across the system, and treated approximately 900 COVID-19 patients on ventilators. The COVID-19 hotline has handled nearly 100,000 calls, and nearly 300,000 patient care appointments have been fulfilled via telephonic or video calls, keeping New Yorker’s safe during the uncertainty of the pandemic.