1	higher ED The Top 26 Colleges for Latinos. read more...
2	SALSA FOR THE WORLD Competitive salsa dancing goes global at the Third Annual World Salsa Championship. read more...
3	LEARNING TO DREAM Dany Garcia Johnson’s Beacon Experience foundation is bringing an education within reach to children of low-income families. read more...
4	AMERICAN ME Introducing San Antonio’s Alameda Smithsonian, the first Hispanic-themed affiliate of the nation’s top museum. read more...
5	LEADING HEALTHCARE Meet Jose R. Sanchez, the man at the helm of Northern Manhattan Health Center, New York City’s largest multi-hospital network. read more...
6	ROLE PLAYER With so many parts to play, there’s nothing desperate about Housewives’ actor Ricardo Antonio Chavira. read more...
7	SONGS FROM THE HEART Oscar-winning music artist Jorge Drexler wrestles with restlessness, uncertainty and doubt on his latest release, 12 segundos de oscuridad. read more...

The need for addressing the medical necessities of underserved Americans has never been greater and Jose Sanchez and his medical team are leading by example.

On any given day, Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center is like a walk through Grand Central Station during commuter rush hour. Throngs of people hustle in and out of this south Bronx hospital, availing themselves of the handful of clinics and specialized care units found inside this hulking brick structure. The institution visibly stands by its credo that no one is turned away.
Amid the bustle, it comes as no surprise that Lincoln has approximately 1,000 outpatient visits a day and has the busiest emergency room in the state of New York. But underneath what may appear to be a hectic, at times desperate scene, lies efficiency, order and quality service, terms not often synonymous with inner city hospitals.
Lincoln is among the three acute care hospitals, three diagnostic and treatment centers and 34 clinics that make up the Generations Plus/Northern Manhattan Health Network. The company is the largest of seven that fall under the Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), an agency formed to oversee New York City’s public health care system.
Like its network counterparts, Harlem Hospital Center and Metropolitan Hospital Center in East Harlem, Lincoln is situated around an impoverished neighborhood with serious health challenges.
The population the network serves is predominantly Hispanic and African-American with lowincomes, substandard housing, little or no health insurance and minimal education. As such, this group suffers from some of the highest incidences of health problems in New York City—if not the nation—including obesity, diabetes, asthma, heart disease and HIV/AIDS.
But while the statistics may be grim, Generations Plus/Northern Manhattan Health Network is committed to reducing these health disparities and has already made great strides as evidenced through its facility upgrades, targeted programs, outreach efforts and numerous commendations from the healthcare industry. Indeed, the network’s three hospitals have received high ratings both with the Joint Commission on Accreditation and the New York State Department of Health.
Jose R. Sanchez, the network’s senior vice president as well as Lincoln’s executive director, is the driving force behind this momentum to break down barriers and provide access and optimal health care to the underserved.
“I’m always looking for how to improve upon the care and safety of our patients,” says Sanchez, 54. “We may have made some significant progress, but we still lag behind with the rest of the country, so our job continues.”
When Sanchez first arrived at Lincoln in 1998, his first order of business was to renovate all of the hospital’s clinics that had gone untouched since 1976. Automatic doors were installed so that people, particularly pregnant women toting children, could enter the facility with ease, he says.
“I wanted to create an environment that is humane and decent to our patients,” says Sanchez, as he walked through Lincoln Medical Center’s shiny corridors. “I’m very proud to say that in some instances we are better than private
institutions.”
Today, restorations at Lincoln continue. Multimillion-dollar expansions are now underway to its emergency department and maternity and nursery units. Last year, the hospital unveiled a new digital mammography unit and a high-tech computed tomography (CT) imaging system.
“The good thing about this hospital is that it has everything,” says Yesenia Deserdan, as she waited in the pediatric clinic for her 1-year-old son, Jayden, to be examined for a stubborn cold. “The care is excellent.”
Sanchez became head of Generations Plus/Northern Manhattan Health Network when it formed in 1999. To understand the scope of his work, he is essentially in charge of overseeing a nearly $1 billion annual budget and 8,000 employees, including more than 1,000 physicians.
“People think it’s easy to do this,” he laughed. “But it’s not.”
In addition to this financial and manpower oversight, Sanchez’s obligations also extend to ensuring quality programming throughout the network. Some of these accomplishments include installing an electronic patient medical record system, for which it won the national 2006 Nicholas E. Davies Organizational award. The online database is quite a feat given that the network has about 1.2 million outpatient visits per year. Other technological advancements the hospitals have seen include a film-less radiology picture archiving system and a medications management system that tracks the administration of all medicines.
Sanchez’s reach also extends to construction improvements. Harlem Hospital Center received $225 million from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to build a brand new hospital that should be completed in about two years. The plan originally called for renovations to the 220-year-old hospital, but Sanchez says that effort would have been disruptive and taken longer to complete, so he pushed for a new facility.
Six years ago, Sanchez created the Urban Health Conference, an annual forum that brings more than 300 network health providers together to discuss the health problems that strike the urban communities they cover and to develop strategies on how best to combat them, he says.
Some of these challenges include reducing the incidence of asthma and diabetes. In the South Bronx, about 18 percent of its residents have diabetes, twice the rate in residents citywide, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In East Harlem—more commonly known as Spanish Harlem or El Barrio—the diabetes figure is 13 percent among its residents.
About 8 percent of East Harlem adults and 9 percent of South Bronx adults report having asthma, compared to 5 percent in New York City overall, the city health department reported. Hospitalization rates for asthma-related problems are also higher in these communities than in other areas, but that figure appears to be on the decline.
To address these glaring disproportionate rates, both Lincoln and Metropolitan hospitals have comprehensive asthma and diabetes programs that not only offer treatment but also education on managing the disease. Currently, a diabetic registry at all the hospitals is kept to closely monitor their patients, with 10,168 people enrolled. An asthma registry is also in place, but figures for the three hospitals were not immediately available.
The work appears to be paying off. At Metropolitan’s Family Centered Asthma Program, for example, there has been a reported 50 percent reduction in emergency room visits and hospitalization for those participating patients. An asthma van is also utilized, traveling to churches, street fairs and schools throughout the neighborhoods to educate the public about the disease.
At Lincoln’s adult asthma clinic, about 3,000 patients are treated per year. South Bronx resident Iris Oyola says she visited the clinic twice and the emergency room eight times for asthmatic attacks last year. She hasn’t been back since October, she says. Oyola, 62, developed asthma 10 years ago, she says. She credits the hospital for saving her life.
“They treat me immediately,” says Oyola, who is of Puerto Rican descent. “They are definitely helping me control my asthma. I can’t complain. It’s a good program for the community.”
Helping make a positive difference in people’s lives is the reason Sanchez says he got involved in the healthcare profession, and why, more importantly, he continues down that path. Sanchez, who emigrated from Puerto Rico at age 16 with $20 in his pocket and unable to speak English, put himself through school, eventually earning a master’s degree from Adelphi University School of Social Work. But as a social worker, Sanchez discovered that he preferred management to clinical work, he says.
Sanchez ascended the ranks to where he is today, but credits his social work background and teamwork skills as keys to helping him make good decisions in administering the largest multi-hospital network in New York City. Perhaps what also sets Sanchez apart are his humanitarian efforts that extend beyond his day-to-day work, including writing a weekly health column for El Diario/La Prensa online and extending a personal hand, often
anonymously, to those in need.
“I love my work and do this with a tremendous sense of passion,” Sanchez says. “I look forward to what’s to come.”