South Nassau Communities Hospital renamed Mount Sinai South Nassau

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The signs are up. The refurbished ambulances are in. The 90-year-old medical institution known as South Nassau Communities Hospital is now Mount Sinai South Nassau.

The name change came nine months after the hospital announced its partnership with Mount Sinai Health Systems, in December 2018. The union sparked a five-year plan to merge the two health care providers and bring the most advanced health care to the South Shore. The modified name reflects “the notoriety of the two systems,” said Richard Murphy, president and CEO of Mount Sinai South Nassau.

“We wanted to maintain the brand recognition of South Nassau as an institution,” Murphy explained, “and also leverage the level of high-quality care with Mount Sinai.”

Both the Mount Sinai Health Systems and Mount Sinai South Nassau boards of directors approved the name after bringing in a research consultant and conducting surveys in public focus groups. The name was also approved by the New York State Department of Health and the secretary of state.

“South Nassau is adopting all of the Mount Sinai standards,” said Dr. Arthur Klein, president of the Mount Sinai Health Network. “In light of that, we wanted the community to understand that this is not how South Nassau used to be, but a new entity.”

The hospital is in the midst of an ongoing process to build on its services. The $400 million initiative includes recruiting new doctors, constructing new facilities and offering enhanced training programs to clinicians and more specialized services to the community. Patients will have access to more advanced procedures that South Nassau did not previously have.

“We’re beginning to bring some services closer to where people live on Long Island,” Murphy said. “Rather than going all the way into the city and making that long, two-hour drive, much of what is offered there can be offered here.”

For example, he said, patients undergoing major procedures, such as liver or heart transplants, at Mount Sinai’s Manhattan location can receive all related pre- and post-surgical care at South Nassau, and avoid going in and out of the city so many times.

Changes will affect not just the hospital in Oceanside, but also Mount Sinai South Nassau’s Long Beach location and doctors’ offices across the South Shore, Klein said. “[The name] is only a piece of how the community will understand that things are somewhat different,” he said. “They’ll understand it by receiving care there, by virtue of ad and marketing campaigns that extend beyond the name, and seeing the hospital grow.”

Klein’s new colleagues at Mount Sinai South Nassau agreed. “We wanted to be able to represent to the public that it’s not just putting a name on the building,” said Joe Calderone, senior vice president of the hospital’s corporate communications and development. “It’s what’s happening behind the name and what it will represent. I think it’s going to be exciting to see it develop further over the coming years.”

“Right here on the South Shore,” Murphy added.

After five years of introducing Mount Sinai’s protocols, clinical services and standards to South Nassau, Mount Sinai will fully take over the hospital. South Nassau now maintains its own board of directors, and its management remains the same.

“Patients already received superb care,” Klein said. “This is a way of augmenting what they received and what South Nassau has already established.”