South Nassau & Mount Sinai Health System Enter Talks Toward Possible Affiliation

Opportunity to Expand & Improve Services for Long Island’s South Shore Communities

South Nassau Communities Hospital’s Board of Directors has agreed to enter a period of exclusive negotiations with the Mount Sinai Health System to come together as part of a long-term strategy to improve care available for residents of the South Shore and Long Island.

In the coming months, South Nassau and Mount Sinai will explore a formal affiliation agreement that could lead to an alignment of medical services, management and governance between the 455-bed Oceanside hospital and the world-renowned Mount Sinai Health System.

If a final agreement is reached and approved, South Nassau, which has served Nassau County residents since 1928, would become the flagship institution of Mount Sinai on Long Island and be a part of Mount Sinai’s $8 billion health system that includes the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai -- one of the most prestigious medical schools in the country, 7 hospitals in the New York metropolitan area and a network of more than 7,000 physicians.

“Our Board of Directors has taken an important step to help secure the future growth of South Nassau for decades to come,” said Richard J. Murphy, South Nassau’s President & CEO. “This is the correct move at the right time and if a formal affiliation agreement is reached, it will translate into a higher level of care being available for the communities we serve on Long Island.”

Joseph Fennessy, Chairman of South Nassau’s Board of Directors, said a partnership like the one envisioned with Mount Sinai has the promise to bring the expertise of a new major Manhattan based health system into the Long Island health care market. “The South Nassau Board of Directors is excited to partner with the Mount Sinai Heath System to bring their state of the art clinical, academic and research capabilities to the people of Long Island. South Nassau has continued to advance its clinical capabilities over the past several years as it strives to provide a higher level of care to the communities we serve. This affiliation will accelerate this process dramatically."

Mount Sinai’s President & CEO, Kenneth L. Davis, MD, said “We look forward to working with South Nassau on an agreement that could create a transformative health partnership.  Our goal is that patients and families of Long Island have access to our high quality care and cutting edge treatments.”

A special affiliation committee of the South Nassau’s board of directors has been studying the potential benefits of an affiliation during the last several months. The affiliation committee recommended Mount Sinai after a thorough search process.
 
“The health care environment on Long Island is ever changing and one that requires us to be constantly evaluating what is best for South Nassau, the communities we serve and our patients,” said Murphy. “While South Nassau is today an excellent facility, we concluded that in order to grow and reach our goal of becoming a true tertiary level facility, we needed to partner and we believe Mount Sinai’s leadership shares our vision for what South Nassau can become.”

The two institutions have signed a nonbinding letter of intent, which will allow South Nassau and Mount Sinai to begin a more in-depth period of due diligence and exclusive talks leading up to a possible final agreement. The boards of Mount Sinai and South Nassau also would have to approve any final deal, as would the New York State Department of Health. The process could take until the end of the year to complete.

The affiliation agreement will allow for continued local control of South Nassau while enabling for future growth with a world-class medical partner, renowned for a commitment to quality care. Mount Sinai has agreed to a significant investment in the physical plant and clinical programs of South Nassau.

“We believe this partnership has the potential to improve the quality, breadth and depth of services available to residents of Long Island while allowing South Nassau to achieve our goal of becoming a true tertiary-level center of excellence,” said Fennessy. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to join forces with a world renowned institution whose name stands for quality.”

South Nassau has strong clinical, fiscal and administrative leadership as well as its position as a premier provider of health services to some 900,000 residents on the South Shore, said Davis. If a final deal is reached, South Nassau would be a fully integrated partner of Mount Sinai and the Icahn School of Medicine, which is consistently ranked as one of the best and most competitive medical schools in the country, Davis said.

“South Nassau will become the flagship tertiary hospital for the Mount Sinai Health System on Long Island,” said Davis. “And South Nassau will also become a major clinical and academic affiliate of the Icahn School of Medicine. We are looking forward to a long and fruitful affiliation that will enhance services for all residents of Long Island.”

South Nassau, a nonprofit medical center and teaching hospital with 3,500 employees and 900 affiliated physicians, is one of the few remaining independently controlled hospitals on Long Island. Independent hospitals across the region have sought affiliations in recent years to improve quality of care while finding efficiencies to reduce the ever-escalating costs of health care delivery.

South Nassau’s affiliation committee was guided by a vision of finding a partner with similar goals and values “to perpetuate low cost and high quality outcomes for the communities we serve while enhancing the availability of locally delivered tertiary care.” The board was assisted in the search process by Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics, LLP, a leading business consulting practice.

“Mount Sinai shares our vision of improving services for our patients and the South Shore communities we serve while maintaining a collaborative environment for our employees,” said Murphy. “Mount Sinai and South Nassau also remain committed to the residents of Long Beach and the other barrier island communities as we continue to restore and redevelop medical services after Superstorm Sandy.”

More than 200 Long Island-based primary care physicians and other specialists who are already aligned with Mount Sinai have indicated they would embrace an affiliation with South Nassau.  

South Nassau currently provides a number of key specialty services found at a tertiary level hospital, including comprehensive cancer care, interventional cardiology, orthopedics and intensive care. The hospital also is the only Trauma Center on the South Shore of Nassau County.

Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), South Nassau® Communities Hospital is one of the region’s largest hospitals. 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.  

South Nassau operates Long Island’s only free-standing, 9-1-1 receiving Emergency Department, located in Long Beach. In addition to its extensive outpatient specialty centers, South Nassau provides emergency and elective angioplasty, as well as noninvasive Novalis Tx™ and Gamma Knife® radiosurgery technologies for tumors of the body and brain. 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.

The hospital has been awarded the Joint Commission’s gold seal of approval for disease-specific care for heart failure, primary stroke, hip replacement, knee replacement, wound care, bariatric surgery, and end-stage renal disease. For more information, visit www.southnassau.org

About the Mount Sinai Health System
The Mount Sinai Health System is an integrated health system committed to providing distinguished care, conducting transformative research, and advancing biomedical education. Structured around seven hospital campuses and a single medical school, the Health System has an extensive ambulatory network and a range of inpatient and outpatient services—from community-based facilities to tertiary and quaternary care.

The System includes approximately 7,100 primary and specialty care physicians; 12 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 140 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. Physicians are affiliated with the renowned Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is ranked among the highest in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding per investigator. The Mount Sinai Hospital is in the “Honor Roll” of best hospitals in America, ranked No. 15 nationally in the 2016-2017 “Best Hospitals” issue of U.S. News & World Report.  The Mount Sinai Hospital is also ranked as one of the nation’s top 20 hospitals in Geriatrics, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Nephrology, Neurology/Neurosurgery, and Ear, Nose & Throat, and is in the top 50 in four other specialties. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 10 nationally for Ophthalmology, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke's, and Mount Sinai West are ranked regionally. Mount Sinai’s Kravis Children’s Hospital is ranked in seven out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report in "Best Children's Hospitals."

For more information, visit www.mountsinai.org, or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.