Press Releases

NYC Health + Hospitals Shares Its 2024 Accomplishments, Including Housing Over 1,000 Patients, Screening Over 50,000 New Yorkers for Cancer, and Opening a New Cardio-Obstetrics Program

Additionally, the health care system launched a comprehensive three-year plan to strengthen and expand its behavioral health services and completed the expansion of its nationally recognized Lifestyle Medicine Program to all five boroughs

Dec 23, 2024

NYC Health + Hospitals today shared an overview of its accomplishments for the year. Throughout 2024, the municipal health care system further cemented its role as innovator and leader in New York City’s health care space. From housing hundreds of its own patients, to establishing Lifestyle Medicine Programs across the five boroughs, to publishing a foundational Behavioral Health Blueprint, the health care system addressed some of the city’s most urgent health care needs. Additionally, the health care system’s leadership and high-quality care were recognized this year by numerous respected organizations, including Healthgrades, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

“From day one, our administration has focused on creating a safer, more affordable New York City. In 2024, we continued to deliver on that vision and ‘Get Stuff Done’ for working-class New Yorkers,” said New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Thanks to our extraordinary public servants, America’s safest big city got even safer this year, with overall crime down and thousands of illegal guns, mopeds, and ghost cars taken off city streets. We passed historic legislation to turn New York into a ‘City of Yes,’ shattered affordable housing records once again, and put billions of dollars back into New Yorkers’ pockets. We broke records for the most jobs and small businesses in city history and moved millions of trash bags off our sidewalks and into containers. But we know that there is even more we can do to continue to uplift working-class families. As we look to the future, our administration remains committed to keeping New Yorkers safe and making our city more affordable for the millions of New Yorkers who call our city home.”

“Our accomplishments this year show that we remain committed to our mission of serving all New Yorkers, without exception,” said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD. “Whether our patients are new arrivals or lifelong New Yorkers, we are here to make health care compassionate and accessible. We also look beyond the four walls of our facilities to address some of the critical needs of our patients, including housing and legal services. I want to thank our team for their commitment to high quality, equitable care.”

A list of the health care system’s 2024 accomplishments is below:

Recognized for Award-Winning, High-Quality Care

• US News & World Report included all 11 hospitals in its “Best Hospitals 2024–2025” list, with a special nod to Elmhurst Hospital as a “Best Regional Hospital for Equitable Access.”
• The US Department of Health and Human Services recognized NYC Health + Hospitals with the Hypertension Innovator Award, one of 11 health systems nationwide to receive the honor.  
• 18 NYC Health + Hospitals facilities announced their “LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader” designation from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, and Bellevue’s Pride Health Center was honored for advancing efforts to train and educate LGBTQ+ healthcare providers.
• Metropolitan Hospital reached a milestone of having performed 200 gender-affirming surgeries, and patient Euro Trill shared their story of undergoing masculinizing top surgery.
• Woodhull Hospital received the IPRO Quality Award for reducing the use of urinary catheters and central line catheters and achieving six consecutive quarters free of central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs)
• South Brooklyn Health reached one year without a single catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI).
• Queens Hospital received the Healthgrades Patient Safety Excellence Award for the third year in a row, and was recognized with two awards for patient safety by the Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses.
• The health system received nine awards for its commitment to high quality palliative care from the Center to Advance Palliative Care, and Coler was one of 15 winners nationwide from a pool of over 1,700 health care organizations.
• The health system’s Accountable Care Organization earned $6.1M from the federal government for reducing avoidable costs and meeting high standards of quality care for patients. NYC Health + Hospitals is the only health system in New York State to achieve savings for eleven years in a row. 
• Newsweek ranked Seaview the #1 nursing home in New York City. Four of the health system’s other skilled nursing facilities ranked in the top ten, and the fifth was ranked in the top 20 out of 600 nursing homes statewide.
• The US Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) gave all five of NYC Health + Hospitals’ nursing homes a five-star quality rating, and four of them also received a five-star overall rating.
• Four primary care sites received the prestigious Million Hearts Hypertension Control Champion recognition from the federal government. Only two other sites in New York State received the award in 2024.
• Gotham Health, Morrisania received the USDA Gold Breastfeeding Award for providing exemplary breastfeeding promotion and support to families in its Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. 

• Coler was the first post-acute care facility in the nation to receive the prestigious Beacon Award for Excellence from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses for its memory care unit.
• Other Beacon Award-winning teams included the Burn ICU at Harlem Hospital; Medical ICU II at Lincoln Hospital; three units at Kings County Hospital: the Medical ICU, Critical Care Unit, and Neonatal ICU; and three units at Jacobi Hospital: its Cardiac Catherization Lab, Neonatal ICU, and Cardiac Critical Care Unit.
• The Emergency Nurses Association recognized Queens Hospital and Metropolitan Hospital with the 2024 Lantern Award, and the DAISY Foundation recognized nurse professionals in post-acute care.

Food as Medicine

• The Lifestyle Medicine Program completed its expansion this spring, opening new sites at Elmhurst Hospital, Gotham Health, Vanderbilt, and Lincoln Hospital, for a total of seven sites systemwide that together can serve 4,000 patients a year. This summer, the program launched free, monthly produce boxes delivered to patients’ homes for up to six months to make it easier to incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into their diet. In November for Diabetes Awareness Month, three patients shared how the Lifestyle Medicine Program helped them manage their diabetes and improve their health.
• NYC Health + Hospitals celebrated over 1.2 million plant-based meals served in the program’s first two years. Plant-based meals are now the default choice at lunch and dinner, and bring a host of health benefits, reductions in carbon emissions, and cost savings.

Investing in Behavioral Health

• The health system launched a comprehensive three-year plan to strengthen and expand its behavioral health services, funded in part with $41 million from the state.
• NYC Health + Hospitals received $5 million to support its behavioral health workforce, one of the largest donations ever received by the health system. $4 million of those funds will directly support student debt relief for behavioral health staff in exchange for a three-year commitment to NYC Health + Hospitals as part of its Behavioral Health Loan Repayment Program (BH4NYC). The additional $1 million in funding will be used for staff retention through career advancement and workplace safety initiatives. 
• The health system began opening 16 school-based mental health clinics in New York City Public Schools to serve over 6,000 students across the Bronx and Central Brooklyn.
• New funds from the Opioid Settlement Fund will expand substance use care through new Addiction Response Teams at Harlem, Jacobi, and Queens Hospitals; addiction counselors to support addiction in birthing units across all 11 public hospitals in the system; and a new substance use clinic for pregnant and postpartum women and their families.
• NYC Health + Hospitals and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene launched a suicide prevention program for at risk youth in the Bronx and Queens who are seen in a hospital following a suicide attempt or serious suicidal behavior. The program will engage young people within 24 hours of arriving at the hospital and will follow them through their hospital stay and up to three months post-discharge. 

New Services and Spaces

• Jacobi Hospital was certified as a Level II Pediatric Trauma Center, making it the only certified Pediatric Trauma Center in the Bronx. 
• Bellevue Hospital now offers Mohs micrographic surgery, the most effective way to treat the two most common types of skin cancer.
• Harlem Hospital launched of a state-of-the-art surgical retina service, enabling providers to restore vision to patients with complex retinal conditions.
• Elmhurst Hospital began offering hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy, a groundbreaking treatment for liver cancer patients – the first hospital in Queens to offer this therapy.
• A new $1.2 million Cardio-Obstetrics program at Kings County Hospital aims to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity among women of color by focusing on heart disease during and after pregnancy, the cause of more than 1 in 4 maternal deaths nationwide. 
• Bellevue Hospital opened a Palliative Care Serenity Unit to serve palliative care patients and their families.
• State-of-the-art 3D mammogram machines were installed atseveralGotham Health sites – Cumberland, East New York, and Morrisania – offering a more comfortable and accurate mammogram.
• Morrisania also installed a new bone density scanner, an advanced diagnostic tool for evaluating the risk of bone fracture and bone loss, or osteoporosis.
• The health system’s nursing homes expanded their services: In the past year, McKinney and Sea View began offering Parkinson’s care, NYC Health + Hospitals/Carter launched telemetry services and hospice care, NYC Health + Hospitals/Gouverneur launched enhanced dining for its residents, and NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler opened The Coler Café.
• Ten new murals can be found around the health system thanks to the Arts in Medicine department’s Community Mural Project at Harlem Hospital; Lincoln Hospital; the Reentry Service Center operated by Correctional Health Services; Metropolitan Hospital; North Central Bronx Hospital; Kings County Hospital; Gouverneur; Coler; and Jacobi Hospital. Another mural will debut after the new year at Bellevue Hospital.
• Launched a 14-week chaplaincy internship that trained 9 interns in an immersive introduction to spiritual care within a healthcare setting.

Meeting Challenges Head On

• NYC Health + Hospitals remained at the forefront of the city’s response to the historic asylum seeker crisis, providing shelter, health care, casework, and social services to approximately 20,000 asylum seekers at our humanitarian relief centers. Staff at the city’s Arrival Center registered and provided medical services to more than 175,000 asylum seekers from over 160 countries since the facility opened in May 2023. This year, our clinicians have completed over 150,000 visits to patients who are known to be migrants or asylum seekers.
• The health system led a training exercise testing the health care system’s ability to screen and isolate a “patient” with simulated symptoms of H5N1 and relevant exposure history, also known as bird flu.
• NYC Health + Hospitals hired over 3,000 new union nurses since March 2023, replacing many temporary nurses.
• Metropolitan Hospital completed construction of a new floodwall to protect against the next Superstorm Sandy. The floodwall includes a large-scale artwork along 1^st and 2^nd Avenue featuring photos of East Harlem residents and the Young Lords in the 60s and 70s, who advocated for better health care in East Harlem and the South Bronx.
• The health system installed its first solar panels on the roof of Elmhurst Hospital as part of its commitment to decarbonize throughout the system.
• The health system shared its Climate Resilience Plan, a key commitment under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Sector Climate Pledge, which NYC Health + Hospitals signed in May 2022. The health system has already achieved a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions since 2006 and is continuing its efforts to hit a 50% reduction target by 2030.
• NYC Care celebrated its five-year anniversary with over 125,000 members enrolled in the program, over one million primary care appointments provided to its members since launch, and over 500,000 calls received at its call center. The program also released two studies showing its members had chronic disease management comparable to Medicaid enrollees.

Finding Homes for Our Patients

• In 2024, NYC Health + Hospitals’ Housing for Health stably housed 375 patients in affordable, supportive, and market rate housing. Today, there are over 500 patients benefiting from housing navigation services. Since its launch, the initiative has now housed nearly 1,200 patients formerly experiencing homelessness.
• Housing for Health’s medical respite program provided short-term housing and access to medical care to nearly 290 patients in 2024, and over 1400 since its inception. Patients experiencing homelessness discharged from our facilities are able to receive medically tailored meals, coordination of and transportation to medical appointments, intensive housing case management, as well as home-based clinical services such as home physical therapy, wound care, and infusion during their respite.

Health Screenings

• NYC Health + Hospitals screened over 50,000 patients for colorectal cancer in 2023 using the at-home fecal immunochemical test (FIT), a 20% increase over 2022.
• The health system performed over 10,000 scans for lung cancer in the first two years of the Lung Cancer Screeningprogram. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women, and more people die each year from lung cancer than breast, prostate, and colon cancers combined.
• Distributed 10,000 free blood pressure cuffs to help patients monitor their blood pressure at home in between doctors’ visits.

Connecting Our Patients to Social Services

• Over 25,000 patients have worked closely with Community Health Workers since the program’s launch in 2021. The team connects patients to supports for housing, financial, food, and legal needs, as well as helping them to schedule health care appointments and coordinate transportation. With more than 250 Community Health Workers, NYC Health + Hospitals has built one of the largest health system-based Community Health Worker programs in the country.
• NYC Health + Hospitals expanded free health-related legal services for its patients in a program that served nearly 5,000 patients in 2023.  

Supporting Our Staff

• The health system opened 20 new wellness rooms where staff can decompress during the workday and participate in wellness activities. The million-dollar project, funded primarily by philanthropy, took two years to complete and will address the burgeoning mental health crisis for healthcare workers.
• The health system was honored by the American Medical Association for enhancing physician well-being and reducing burnout, one of 62 health systems nationwide to earn the recognition this year.
• NYC Health + Hospitals was recognized as a 2024 WellBeing First Champion for its efforts to remove invasive mental health questions on physician credentialing applications.
• Staff can now access the Interactive Screening Program, developed by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, to screen for stress and depression and connect to available mental health programs.

Using Creativity to Connect to and Heal Our Patients

• NYC Health + Hospitals launched its own podcast, the Remedy. Episodes covered the power of primary care, food as medicine, preparing for the next pandemic, women’s health, patients experiencing homelessness, caring for asylum seekers, and the health system’s workforce wellness program, Helping Healers Heal.
• The health system came out with its own textbook on the Covid-19 pandemic, featuring insights from nearly 100 staff. All proceeds benefit the NYC Health + Hospitals’ Helping Healers Heal program.

Public Advocacy

• Additionally, NYC Health + Hospitals successfully advocated for over $146 million in city, state, and federal funding for medical equipment and structural upgrades for its facilities, including $27.5 million to expand maternal and pediatric care at Elmhurst Hospital from the State; $8 million for a new Family Substance Use clinic for pregnant and postpartum women and their families at Lincoln Hospital; and $6 million for the new Bronx Recovery Center at Lincoln Hospital.

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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.