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This is Laura Dirda with the Becker's Healthcare
podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by doctor
Tanvir Sasse,
chief of neurosurgery administration at Mount Sinai, Queens.
Doctor Sasse, it's a pleasure to have you
on the podcast today.
Thank you so much for having me, Laura.
It's a pleasure to hear.
Now I know we've got a lot to
talk about, but before we dive into our
broader conversation
and, you know, discuss some of the things
that you're doing at Mount Sinai, Queens, I
I would love to have you introduce yourself
and tell us a little bit about your
background.
Absolutely.
So my name is Tamir Sharsi. I'm a
primary care physician by training.
I do a practice.
I started my career back in India as
a as a primary care physician.
Moved to the the business of medicine 15
years ago. Back and take care of my
father's hospital back in India, but I never
ended up going there.
He still hates me for that.
So I started my administrative career
as a as a administrative resident at New
York Hospital in Queens, now the New York
Presbyterian Queens and New York City.
Worked through the ranks there, became a practice
manager, then moved over to Emory,
ran the OBGYN,
a program for the entire health system at
Emory Healthcare.
Came back to Sinai to run the operations,
for the for the department of neurosurgery.
Continue to, you know, climb through the ranks.
Now I oversee
the entire spectrum of neurosurgical,
programs at at all the hospitals at Mount
Sinai.
I also oversee, you know, the entire administrative
spectrum of of Mount Sinai Queens. That's a
newer program which we started, like, a few
years ago.
So starting from soup to nuts, you know,
on figuring out how many physicians do we
need, how many
inpatient best do we use, What sort of
staffing do we need, you know, in the
ICUs,
in the OR, in the outpatient side to
support the physician and the number of physician,
how we grow them,
how we can provide call coverage. You know?
So we the goal was,
on the eastern
northeast and northwestern end of Queens,
there wasn't, you know, a lot of neurosurgical
presence. And Queens is like the population of
Queens is 3,500,000
people,
and there weren't enough,
clinicians
who will provide spine and brain care to
the entire, you know, population of, of the
Queensborough.
So that's was the main reason to start
over in press wrapped up our volume.
We are doing most of our cases that
come in Queens and Mount Sinai Queens Hospital.
We have recruited another physician who's starting in
in 2 months. So the plan is to
continue,
to have growth in Queen.
But along with it's not just Queen's. We
want to, you know, capture the other areas
as well. So in the last 4 years
or so at Mount Sinai Health System and
Neurosurgery, we have expanded at 11 new sites.
Post COVID, our volume has gone up by
27%.
We have now become the 2nd top 5,
high volume academic programs in the country.
We are one of the top 10 neurosurgical
programs in the world.
So, you know, we have lot of world
class physicians, and the goal for me is
to provide
my chairman, my physician leaders, my all other
physicians
the top notch, you know, support, be it
equipment in the OR, be it equipment in
the outpatient
side, be it the staffing, the clinic clinicians,
the outpatient staff. I want them to provide
all possible resources at Mount Sinai that I
can.
So that's the ultimate goal, and we've been
fairly successful in doing so in the last
many years at Mount Sinai.
That's great to hear and, you know, really
cool that you've had such,
positive results and move the needle in many
different ways. From your perspective, what are some
of the top priorities for you the rest
of the year? What's top of mind and
and what initiatives are you focusing most of
your time on?
Absolutely.
I think it is is evolving. Right? And
I live like soccer. The physicians are the
center forward,
and, you know, all the others, support team,
right, be it the the advanced practice providers,
the nurses, administrators,
administrative staff.
We are just the, you know, defenders, left
wingers,
you know, support team, right, to make sure
that whatever we need to do,
we do it the best for the patients.
So that brings a lot of challenges. Right?
And we live and work in Manhattan,
probably one of the
most competitive places in the world. Right? So
we have to be competitively ahead of others.
Right? You know, we have
top notch hospital, NYU,
Cornell, Columbia, Mount Sinai, Northwell.
So
for the next 6 months as well as
going forward is how do we, stay competitively
ahead. Right?
How we can expand into the other territories
where we haven't been, and maybe our competitors
are also trying to go in there. One
example would be, you know, Long Island. Like,
it's a it's a large piece of land
with 3,
counties,
approximately
7,000,000 people who live in there. There's not
much health care that that is is is
there
that can provide top notch care.
So NYU has expanded into their we have
expanded,
our footprint
in in in Long Island. And for the
next 6 months is to continue to stay
competitively ahead,
continue to expand our foot footprint and provide
that level of care to the patient that
we can and keep on brainstorming as to
what we can do,
with the focus on the long term, the
growth, expansion,
and providing the, you know, best possible care
to the patients.
That really makes a lot of sense. And,
you know, it's great to hear that there's
growth ahead. From your perspective, I wanna dig
a little bit deeper. What programs and initiatives
have been most needle moving for you in
the last year or so?
The main has been, I would say,
growth of our pediatric neurosurgery program.
It's it's a very niche category,
And we have, you know, some of the
top notch neurosurgeons
in in in focusing pediatric neurosurgery
in the world.
However,
you know, so in in in medicine, right,
referrals come to physicians from the other physicians,
and it becomes a habit. And you
have been a physician, so I understand that
very well. So if I'm referring a physician
to, you know, one physician, it's hard for
that specific physician or me to convince me
that he or she is better than can
provide better care to my patients than the
physician I'm referring to. Right? So in pediatric
intersurgery, that has been a major major
pain point for us to see how we
can break the habit of those physicians who
are referring to others.
And we know we have the best in
the world. Right? But breaking that habit has
been I mean, but it's it's starting to
gain some traction, so hopefully,
it'll pick up soon.
2nd needle moving point has been, now starting
to expand in,
Long Island. So those 2 have been
quite a painful,
areas, but I think the the analgesic is
is working now. So we we should be
fairly okay in the in the next 6
months or so, and going forward it it
should get much better.
That's helpful to know and, you know, I
appreciate you sharing with us. Now before we
wrap up here, I'm wondering how are you
thinking about growth and
experience over the next few years, for your
teams?
What do you really see as being different
over the next 2 to 3 years as
health care continues to evolve? So we we
will actively intervene, actively recruiting. The plan is
to grow and and never stop. Right? Stagnation
is boring, and we we don't like stagnation.
So we have a few physicians who are
starting, you know, as 1 when one physician
started, another set of team that starts with
the physician.
So our goal is to,
expand into Eastern Long Island,
Northwestern New Jersey,
north in New York, state. We are trying
to
use some creative,
you know, methodologies in how we want to
see our patients.
So currently, all the patients are being seen
by the physicians with some seen by the
advanced practice providers.
We are trying to shift that model that,
you know, any patient that doesn't need to
be seen by by the surgeon
should be seen by the advanced practice provider.
They filter the, they screen the patient out.
They filter all the,
requirements they need for the patient to be
seen by the surgeon. What this will do
and surgical patients, and we should be able
to provide, you know, broader care
to to a broader set of community versus,
not having patients physicians focus on patients who
really need their intervention,
and and, you know, changing their lives. So
those are a couple of the,
the main things we are looking at.
Got it. That's so helpful to know. Doctor
Sassi, thank you so much for joining us
on the podcast today. This has been such
a fascinating discussion, and I look forward to
connecting with you again soon.
Pleasure is all mine. Thank you so much
for having