Second from right, Margaret McGovern, MD, PhD, Professor and Chairman, Department of Pediatrics, Stony Brook School of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief, Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital, cuts the ribbon at the new location of Stony Brook Children’s Services at 4 Technology Drive in Setauket, NY. Looking on, left to right, are Susmita Pati, MD, MPH, Chief of Primary Care Pediatrics at Stony Brook Children’s; Catherine Kier, MD, Chief of Pediatric Pulmonology/Cystic Fibrosis at Stony Brook Children’s; James Nielsen, MD, Chief of Pediatric Cardiology at Stony Brook Children’s; and Kenneth Kaushansky, MD, MACP, Senior Vice President, Health Sciences, and Dean, Stony Brook School of Medicine.

Stony Brook Long Island Children's Hospital opens new pediatric specialty outpatient practice.
State-of-the-art facility underscores commitment to health of Suffolk County’s children

Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital has opened a multi-specialty pediatric outpatient practice at 4 Technology Drive to provide an array of pediatric services in one convenient location for patients and their families.

Called Stony Brook Children’s Services, the practice combines pediatric primary care, adolescent medicine, pediatric pulmonology, pediatric cardiology and pediatric allergy/immunology services. A total of 13 specialists are located at the state-of-the-art facility.

The practice offers a Pediatric Echocardiography Laboratory for the latest in non-invasive cardiac imaging for children, including highly specialized fetal echocardiography. The dedicated lab is available five days a week, to improve the efficiency of patient visits.

“This new facility underscores Stony Brook’s ongoing commitment and investment in the health of Suffolk County’s children, said Margaret McGovern, MD, PhD, Professor and Chairman, Department of Pediatrics, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief, Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital. “As the provider of advanced pediatric care in Suffolk County, Stony Brook Children’s is bringing more and more highly specialized, board-certified physicians to the community.”

Doctors practicing at the facility are:

• Robyn Blair, MD, Pediatric Primary Care – A primary care pediatrician at Stony Brook Children’s, Dr. Blair is also the Director of the Pediatric Residency Program at Stony Brook Children’s.
• Latha Chandran, MD, MPH, Pediatric Primary Care – A primary care pediatrician at Stony Brook Children’s, Dr. Chandran is also a professor of pediatrics and the vice dean for undergraduate medical education at Stony Brook University School of Medicine.
• Traci Downs, MD, Pediatric Primary Care – A primary care pediatrician at Stony Brook Children’s, specializes in global health and has led international health experiences for pediatric residents to Zambia for the past several years.
• Allison Eliscu, MD, Adolescent Medicine – An adolescent medicine physician at Stony Brook Children’s, Dr. Eliscu provides comprehensive primary care services for patients 12 to 24 years of age, as well as subspecialty care addressing the major health issues of adolescents. She specializes in adolescent gynecologic services, family planning services, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and management of ADHD, anxiety, depression and eating disorders.
• Katharine Kevill, MD, Pediatric Pulmonology – A member of Stony Brook Children’s Pediatric Pulmonary team, Dr. Kevill’s goals are to establish a dedicated pediatric pulmonary function laboratory and develop a comprehensive asthma management program.
• Catherine Kier, MD, Pediatric Pulmonology – Dr. Kier is Chief of Pediatric Pulmonology/Cystic Fibrosis at Stony Brook Children’s and Director of the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Center. Her clinical research interests are asthma education, obesity and pediatric sleep.
• James Nielsen, MD, Pediatric Cardiology – The new Chief of Pediatric Cardiology at Stony Brook Children’s, Dr. Nielsen is an expert in pediatric and congenital heart disease and its echocardiographic evaluation. He is also an internationally recognized authority on the advanced application of modern, noninvasive imaging technologies in congenital heart disease evaluation.
• Laurie Panesar, MD, Pediatric Cardiology – A pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Panesar is the Director of Pediatric and Fetal Echocardiography at Stony Brook Children’s.
• Kalpana Patel, MD, Pediatric Allergy/Immunology – A pediatric allergy/immunologist, Dr. Patel’s areas of expertise include pediatric food and environmental allergies.
• Susmita Pati, MD, MPH, Pediatric Primary Care – A pediatrician and the Chief of Primary Care Pediatrics at Stony Brook Children’s, Dr. Pati specializes in health services research, examining the impact of public policy on the health of underserved children and families. Dr. Pati’s research projects include predictors of Medicaid retention, the relationship between maternal health literacy and child health outcomes, and methods to tailor pediatric health supervision to individual needs.
• Leslie Quinn, MD, Pediatric Primary Care – A primary care pediatrician at Stony Brook Children’s, Dr. Quinn specializes in child maltreatment. She is Medical Director of the New York State EAC Suffolk County Child Advocacy Center at the Pat & Mary Bagnato Place for Kids, and Medical Consultant for Child Protective Services and the District Attorney’s Office of Suffolk County.
• Lycia Ryder, DO, Pediatric Primary Care – A primary care pediatrician at Stony Brook Children’s, Dr. Ryder specializes in promoting early literacy. She also serves as the site coordinator for the Reach Out and Read Program.
• Susan Schuval, MD, Pediatric Allergy/Immunology – Chief of Allergy/Immunology at Stony Brook Children’s, Dr. Schuval focuses on primary immunodeficiency, food allergy and eosinophilic esophagitis.
  
  

About Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital:

Established in June 2010, Stony Brook Long Island Children's Hospital is Suffolk County’s only children’s hospital. More than 7,000 children and adolescents are admitted each year. Stony Brook Children’s operates 100 pediatric beds and has more than 100 full-time pediatric physicians and surgeons and over 200 voluntary pediatric faculty members in 30 different specialties. The hospital is the Level 4 Regional Perinatal Center for our area and has a Level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. It is home to the nation’s first Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center and also offers a Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program, Pediatric Cardiology Program, Pediatric HIV and AIDS Center, Cystic Fibrosis Center and the Cody Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities. To learn more, visit www.stonybrookchildrens.org.

Source: Stony Brook Children's Hospital press release dated April 19, 2012.

Peconic Bay Medical Center is one of the best hospitals in the New York area for patient safety, according to an analysis by the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center published in February.

The Riverhead hospital ranked second among hospitals in the New York metro area on "four key measures of patient safety," the nonprofit consumer research organization found.

Most metro New York hospitals fall short when it comes to patient safety, performing much worse than the national average, according to the analysis. Of the 50 lowest-rated hospitals for patient safety, 36 were in the New York City area, Consumer Reports found. See NY-area ratings report.

In fact, Peconic Bay was one of only four New York area hospitals that did better than average on a combined score for infection rates, readmission rates, discharge instructions and medication instructions. Peconic Bay scored 12 percent better than the national average on the four indicators combined.

On Long Island only Stony Brook University Medical Center and Glen Cove Hospital also performed better than average on hospital infections, according to Consumer Reports. Southampton Hospital and Mercy Medical Center (Rockville Centre) scored much worse than average on hospital infections, according to the report .

Peconic Bay was second only to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, which scored 22 percent better than the national average on the four measures of safety combined.

While the Riverhead hospital outperformed others in the metro area on infections, it scored worse than the national average on readmissions and discharge instructions and much worse than average on medication instructions, according to Consumer Reports. Indeed, not one New York area hospital performed better than average on any of the three other measures, with most hospitals scoring worse or much worse than average on readmissions and instructions.

Consumer Reports analyzed data collected by the New York State Health Department on the two most common and potentially deadly hospital-acquired infections: central-line bloodstream infections — usually caused by the mishandling of catheters used to deliver fluids, medications and nutrition — and surgical site infections occurring within 30 days of surgery.

A hospital's rating on readmissions reflects the likelihood that a patient hospitalized because of heart attack, heart failure, or pneumonia will have to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of initial discharge, according to billing data analyzed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Consumer Reports said.

The ratings for discharge instructions and medication instructions are based on hospital-reported survey data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Consumer Reports said it looked at the percentage of patients who said they were given clear information before going home and the percentage of patients who said they were told the purpose of the drugs they were prescribed while in the hospital and the possible side effects.

The safety performance of Long Island hospitals, reflected by the combined score on the four measures of patient safety examined by Consumer Reports:

St. Francis Hospital, Roslyn, 22 percent better than the national average
Peconic Bay Medical Center, Riverhead, 12 percent better than the national average
Glen Cove Hospital, Glen Cove, 4 percent better than the national average

St. Charles Hospital, Port Jefferson, 1 percent worse than the national average
John T. Mather Memorial Hospital, Port Jefferson, 5 percent worse than average
Winthrop-University Hospital, Mineola, 12 percent worse than average
Southside Hospital, Bay Shore, 12 percent worse than average
Stony Brook University Medical Center, Stony Brook, 13 percent worse than average
Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center, West Islip, 14 percent worse than average
New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York City 18 percent worse than average
Huntington Hospital, Huntington, 19 percent worse than average
St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center, Smithtown, 24 percent worse than average
North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, 26 percent worse than average
Long Island Jewish Medical Center, New Hyde Park, 26 percent worse than average
Southampton Hospital, Southampton, N.Y. 41 percent worse than average
Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center, Patchogue, 43 percent worse than average