South Nassau Board Member Anthony Cancellieri Named Chair of Long Island Health Network

South Nassau Communities Hospitals Board Member Anthony Cancellieri has been named Chairman of the Long Island Health Network (LIHN), a consortium of 10 hospitals that works to improve operational efficiency, standardize quality and expand access to care for all Long Islanders.

The hospitals tapped Cancellieri as Chairman at a time when all hospitals are under increasing pressure to provide ‘value-based’ care that puts an emphasis on wellness programs that are designed to improve patient health and reduce hospital stays. The 10 hospitals in LIHN have been working together since 1998 to reduce costs while improving care. The Chair is a voluntary, unpaid position.

“I am honored to be asked to lead the LIHN network,” said Cancellieri, a South Nassau board member who serves on its Executive Committee and is chair of the hospital’s Buildings Committee. “By working together, the LIHN member hospitals have been able to share information on best practices both in the clinical and financial areas. These joint efforts have resulted in lower health care costs across our hospital network and improved patient outcomes.

“The future of health care is in finding ways to keep people out of the hospital and keep them well in the first place – before they get to the point of needing to be hospitalized. Reducing the cost of delivering care has been a focus of LIHN since its inception and we will continue to help lead the way in this area.”

Cancellieri is a Vice President at Park Strategies, where he has worked since October 2006. Mr. Cancellieri has extensive governmental relations skills and experience during his more than 35 years in government service throughout the State of New York. Prior to joining Park Strategies, Mr. Cancellieri served as Chief Deputy County Executive of Nassau County under then County Executive Tom Suozzi. As Chief Deputy County Executive, Mr. Cancellieri directed the day to day operations of the 2.3 billion dollar municipal corporation with over 9,000 employees.

Prior to his work in Nassau County Mr. Cancellieri was the Chief Operating Officer of the Village of Rockville Centre for a period of 15 years. In addition, Mr. Cancellieri served in a variety of senior management positions within New York City government during the Koch Administration in the Police, Parks and Finance Departments.

The 10 hospitals of the Long Island Health Network joined together in 1998 to improve their clinical quality, enhance their operational efficiency, and expand access to care for the 2.8 million residents of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. One of LIHN’s goals is provide patients with the same high level of medical care, no matter which hospital they go to in the LIHN network. The hospitals use a single integrated approach to measuring and improving the quality of healthcare throughout its 10 member hospitals.

LIHN's standards of care are derived from the most advanced medical research. A committee made up of top physicians from each LIHN hospital continuously reviews publicly available "best practices" research to refine LIHN's guidelines for patient care. As a result, LIHN hospitals' rate of quality improvement outpaces the average improvement of U.S. hospitals.

Reducing the cost of delivering high-quality care to the communities we serve is an important goal of LIHN. Its hospitals work together to become more efficient by sharing strategies for operational cost savings and seeking out new business partnerships with insurance companies. In an era when healthcare is increasingly dominated by large, centrally governed hospital systems, LIHN hospitals continue their focus on delivering community-based care and collaborating with insurers' efforts to expand local access to affordable health insurance products.

The hospitals in LIHN – in addition to South Nassau Communities Hospital – include: Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center, John T. Mather Memorial Hospital, Mercy Medical Center, St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center, St. Charles Hospital, St. Francis Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital and Winthrop-University Hospital.

Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), South Nassau® Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals, with 455 beds, more than 900 physicians and 3,000 employees. Located in Oceanside, NY, the hospital is an acute-care, not-for-profit teaching hospital that provides state-of-the-art care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health and emergency services. In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau provides emergency and elective angioplasty, and is the only hospital on Long Island with the Novalis Tx™ and Gamma Knife® radiosurgery technologies.

South Nassau is a designated Stroke Center by the New York State Department of Health and Comprehensive Community Cancer Center by the American College of Surgeons and is an accredited center of the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Association and Quality Improvement Program. In addition, the hospital has been awarded the Joint Commission’s gold seal of approval as a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures, including heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care; and disease-specific care for hip and joint replacement, wound care and end-stage renal disease. For more information, visit www.southnassau.org.