Dr. Howard J. Finger Named 2025 Clinician of the Year by the Foundation for Post-Acute Care and Long-Term Care Medicine
Howard J. Finger, DO is the longest-serving physician at NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler with 40 years in post-acute and long-term care delivery
New York, NY —NYC Health + Hospitals today announced that Howard J. Finger, DO was named 2025 Clinician of the Year by The Foundation for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care (PALTC) Medicine. Dr. Finger is the longest-serving physician at NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler with 40 years in post-acute and long-term care delivery.He is an attending physician, clinical ethics consultant, and Utilization Management /Quality Assurance physician advisor at NYC Health + Hospitals/Carter and NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler, two top-ranked nursing homes in New York City. From 2019 – 2022, Dr. Finger served as co-chair of the NYC Health + Hospitals Bioethics Council, where he helped develop an Algorithm for the ‘Unbefriended’ to assist care teams in making end-of-life treatment decisions when patients lack both decisional capacity and surrogates, which he applied at Coler. He was lead author of three articles on the subject, the latest of which, “An Interdisciplinary Ethics Panel Approach to End-of-life Decision-Making for Unbefriended Nursing Home Residents,” was published in The Journal of Clinical Ethics in 2022.
“The PALTC Clinician of the Year award, I believe, is more reflective of what my colleagues and I have been able to achieve as a team, rather than a single effort on my part,” said Howard Finger, DO. “I am fortunate to have outstanding colleagues.”
“For the last 40 years, Dr. Finger has served our health system as an innovator and visionary in the post-acute and long-term care setting, bringing his exceptional expertise, collaborative spirit, and an immeasurable level of compassion to his patients and residents,” said NYC Health + Hospitals Senior Vice President for Post-Acute Care Khoi Luong, DO, MBA. “Dr. Finger’s long-standing career continues to have broad transformative impact on person-centered care for older adults and we are so proud of his well-deserved distinction as PALTC’s 2025 Clinician of the Year.”
“Congratulations Dr. Finger for being selected as the “Clinician of the Year” by the Foundation for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Your dedication, expertise, and compassion truly make a difference in the lives of our residents, their family members, and the Coler staff,” said NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler Chief Executive Officer Stephen Catullo, LNHA, MBA. “This recognition is well-deserved and is a testament to your significant contributions to the field of medical ethics.”
“Dr. Finger is a long-standing leader of NYC Health + Hospitals/Carter’s medical staff. His amazing accomplishments are a testament to his relentless search for ethical solutions and innovative ways to improve our utilization management, standard of care and overall quality,” said NYC Health + Hospitals/Carter Chief Executive Officer Floyd R. Long, LNHA, MBA. “Dr. Finger has contributed greatly to Carter’s success. Congratulations, Dr. Finger for being named “Clinician of the Year.”
“With his enduring penchant for erudition in medical ethics, Dr. Finger is always eager to join the frontline teams to tackle the most daunting ethical challenges. As he applies principles of ethics to complex medical presentations to elucidate the next steps, it also becomes apparent that he is a gifted teacher by sharing his thinking process in a simple and understandable manner,” said NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler Chief of Psychiatry Ravindra Amin, MD. “His soft-spoken modest persona defies the depth of his knowledge; it is no surprise that he is highly regarded among his medical ethics peers systemwide.”
In 2020, Dr. Finger co-developed a COVID-19 Performance Improvement (PI) Bundle and served as PI team co-leader at Coler where it contributed to a large reduction in the COVID-19 infection fatality rate among its highly vulnerable, largely racial-ethic minority resident population, which was reported in the Jan/Feb 2022 edition of the American Journal of Medical Quality, “Newly developed COVID-19 bundle greatly reduces the infection fatality rate for highly vulnerable nursing home population.”
In 2024, with the help of Dr. Finger and several of his physician colleagues, NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler received the American Association of Critical Care Nursing (AACN) Beacon Award for Excellence in recognition of the high-quality dementia care provided in its Memory Care Unit, becoming the first post-acute care recipient in the United States.
Dr. Finger is a graduate of the Des Moines University Osteopathic School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency training at Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola, NY (now called NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island). He is certified by the American Board of Quality Assurance and Utilization Review Physicians (ABQAURP) in Health Care and Quality Management (HCQM) and is a Fellow of ABQAURP. He currently serves on the Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association (PALTmed) Ethics Subcommittee and is a member of the Empire State Bioethics Consortium (ESBC), having served on its board of directors from 2021 to 2024.
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MEDIA CONTACT: Rafael Dominguez, rafael.dominguez@nychhc.org, 646-988-3599 #017-25
About NYC Health + Hospitals/Post-Acute Care
NYC Health + Hospitals Post-Acute Care is comprised of five skilled nursing facilities (SNF), a long-term acute care hospital (LTACH) and adult day healthcare program. There is a total of 2,099 inpatient beds in the SNFs and LTACH. Carter, Coler, Gouverneur, McKinney, and Seaview have all consistently earn Four- & Five-Star Ratings awarded by CMS. In addition, Carter, Gouverneur, McKinney and Seaview have been recognized by US News & World Report among the Best Nursing Homes in 2025, rated as ‘high-performing’ in long-term care and/or short-term rehabilitation; Newsweek ranks Carter, Coler, Gouverneur, and Sea View in the Top 10 of Best Nursing Homes 2025 in New York State; McKinney ranked in the Top 20. For more information, visit https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/postacutecare.
About NYC Health + Hospitals
NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest municipal health care system in the nation serving more than a million New Yorkers annually in more than 70 patient care locations across the city’s five boroughs. A robust network of outpatient, neighborhood-based primary and specialty care centers anchors care coordination with the system’s trauma centers, nursing homes, post-acute care centers, home care agency, and MetroPlus health plan—all supported by 11 essential hospitals. Its diverse workforce of more than 43,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
About the Foundation for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine
The Foundation for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine is an independent not-for-profit national organization that philanthropically supports the advancement of education, clinical resources, workforce, and research. The Foundation advances the quality of life for persons in post-acute and long-term care (PALTC) through inspiring, educating and recognizing future and current health care professionals. Visit the Foundation for PALTC Medicine at www.paltcfoundation.org.
About Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association (PALTmed)
Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medical Association (PALTmed), formerly AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care (PALTC) Medicine, is the only organization of its kind providing high-quality resources and education to the interdisciplinary team working in PALTC settings, including medical directors, attending physicians, nurse practitioners, physician associates, consultant pharmacists, and doctorly-prepared clinicians. PALTmed’s goal is to support its diverse membership, respond to its interests, establish practice standards, and encourage professional advancement for all. For more information, visit paltmed.org.
