Dr. Katz is recognized for his leadership guiding the nation’s largest municipal health care system through the COVID-19 pandemic
NYC Health + Hospitals today announced that its President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD has been named to Modern Healthcare’s 2022 list of the 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives. Dr. Katz is part of a diverse group of clinical leaders nationwide who are recognized for their resiliency and dedication to their patients through the COVID-19 pandemic. Modern Healthcare says even during the worst of the crisis, Dr. Katz and the other honorees “found ways to adapt, innovate, and focus on the true bottom line: the patient.”
“I am very proud and appreciative of this recognition, and I want to accept this honor on behalf of our 43,000 employees at NYC Health + Hospitals. Their resiliency helped our city get through the worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD. “They have worked through anxiety, burnout, personal sickness and loss. I am grateful to them for their unwavering service to New Yorkers.”
Since Dr. Katz’s appointment in 2018, the health system has significantly expanded access to care, including the creation of NYC Care, a universal health access program that provides care to more than 100,000 uninsured New Yorkers. He oversaw the creation of a modern electronic health record system, increased the number of nurses working in the system, developed a modern ambulance transport system, and launched new street outreach programs to improve the health of homeless New Yorkers. He also led the financial turnaround of NYC Health + Hospitals by eliminating the deficit through enrolling more New Yorkers into health insurance and appropriately billing insurance plans.
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Katz provided strategic guidance to then Mayor Bill de Blasio, while directing the municipal health care system’s response to the surge of patients that peaked to a maximum of 3,700 patients, requiring the tripling of ICU capacity at its 11 hospitals to save New Yorkers. As the epicenter of the epicenter, NYC Health + Hospitals became the trusted care provider for thousands of New Yorkers, led the city’s Test & Trace operation, and administered more than 1.3 million COVID-19 vaccines.
Previously, Dr. Katz served as Director of the Los Angeles County Health Agency, which combines the Departments of Health Services, Public Health, and Mental Health into a single entity to provide integrated care and programming within Los Angeles. The Agency has a budget of $7 billion, 28,000 employees, and a large number of community partners. Dr. Katz served as the Director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS), the second largest public safety net system in the United States. During this time, he created the ambulatory care network and empaneled more than 350,000 patients to a primary care home. He eliminated the deficit of DHS through increased revenues and decreased administrative expenses, and used ACA funding to pay for a new integrated electronic health system. He moved more than 4,000 medically complex patients from hospitals and emergency departments into independent housing, thereby eliminating unnecessary expensive hospital care and giving the patients the dignity of their own home.
Before he came to Los Angeles Dr. Katz served as Director and Health Officer of the San Francisco Department of Health for 13 years. He is well known for funding needle exchange, creating Healthy San Francisco, outlawing the sale of tobacco at pharmacies, and winning ballot measures for rebuilding Laguna Honda Hospital and San Francisco General Hospital.
He is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Medical School. He completed an internal medicine residency at UCSF Medical School and was an RWJ Clinical Scholar. Dr. Katz continues to practice as a primary care physician and sees patients at NYC Health + Hospitals/Gouverneur on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
He is the Deputy Editor of JAMA Internal Medicine, an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (previously the Institute of Medicine) and the recipient of the Los Angeles County Medical Association 2015 Healthcare Champion of the year.
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