A rare distinction for Saint Michael’s Medical Center in Newark — it has been named one of the Top 100 Hospitals in the US by Fortune magazine and Merative, formerly IBM Watson Health. It was the only hospital in New Jersey to make the list.
CEO Dr. Alan Sickles said the hospital stands out for its community involvement.
“They looked at a couple of different aspects of how the hospital relates to the community,” he said, “about how we partner with the community in terms of healthy project initiatives, how we implement critical programs, and how we promote community health."
He also said the stroke program has improved significantly over the past year and a half, important because stroke is a big problem in Newark.
“We have a stroke code, like you’d have a cardiac arrest, we have one for stroke now,” he said, “and it initiates this cascade of care that may end up with a thrombectomy, the procedure to remove that clot, or medication to help dissolve it, so that’s been a big advance for us.”
Another priority, said Sickles, is disease prevention.
“We have a cancer screening program, that’s another partially state funded program, we call it In The Pink,” he said, “and we screen underinsured and uninsured patients for breast, cervical, colon and prostate cancer.”