Contact:

Karin Eskenazi
212-342-0508
ket2116@columbia.edu

Elizabeth Streich
212-305-6535
eas2125@columbia.edu

Gloria Chin
212-305-5587
glc9010@nyp.org

Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital Together Open New Community Resource Center
to Promote Health Literacy and Clinical Trials Education

New Facility Named Columbia Community Partnership for Health

The center was established by Columbia University Medical Center’s/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Henry N. Ginsberg, MD, director of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, and CCPH co-directors Bernadette Boden-Albala, DrPH and Rafael A. Lantigua, MD., in order to encourage collaboration between community- and medical center-based research programs; enhance the quality of population- and community-based research; integrate a community-based provider network into the national clinical and translational research agenda; and effectively communicate with the community to foster research activities of mutual benefit.

Visitors to the newly renovated 1800-square-foot center will be able to access information about medical conditions and new clinical trial research at Columbia University Medical Center/NewYork-Presbyterian that might help them and their families. CCPH offers a bilingual health information library and computers for community members to search for health information; and features exam rooms, and a conference room designed as a site for health promotion and disease prevention lectures, focus group meetings, and related events. It is located at 390 Fort Washington Avenue (between W. 177 and 178th Streets) in Washington Heights-Inwood.

Along with Drs. Ginsberg, Boden-Albala and Lantigua, Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian senior faculty and administration who joined in the opening celebration included: Lee Goldman, MD, executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences and dean of the faculties of health sciences and of medicine, Columbia University Medical Center; Robert E. Kelly, MD, senior vice president, chief medical officer and chief operating officer, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center; J. Emilio Carrillo, MD, vice president of community health development, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital; and Donald W. Landry, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center and chief of medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Celeste Johnson, regional director of the New York State Department of Health, was also present.

CCPH is aligned with the Washington Heights Health Initiative of Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and. The Initiative is a coordinated effort to measurably improve the health of the communities of Washington Heights and Inwood.

Columbia/NewYork-Presbyterian’s clinical and translational science program, led by Dr. Ginsberg, is part of a national consortium of health care providers, clinical researchers, and educators whose mandate is to improve the delivery of new treatments and other health strategies to the public. The Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, which is home to the clinical and translational science program, is funded by a federal grant from the NIH’s National Center for Research Resources (award no. UL1RR024156) and by the Herbert and Florence Irving Endowment.

Additional key members of the CCPH center’s team include Drs. Joyce Moon-Howard, Suzanne Bakken, J. Thomas Bigger, Emilio Carrillo, Richard Younge, Alwyn Cohall, and Ms. Sandra Harris, and Ms. Alejandra Aguirre.

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Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, pre-clinical and clinical research, in medical and health sciences education, and in patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Established in 1767, Columbia’s College of Physicians & Surgeons was the first institution in the country to grant the M.D. degree. Among the most selective medical schools in the country, the school is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York State and one of the largest in the country. For more information, please visit www.cumc.columbia.edu.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, based in New York City, is the nation’s largest not-for-profit, non-sectarian hospital, with 2,242 beds. The Hospital has nearly 2 million inpatient and outpatient visits in a year, including more than 230,000 visits to its emergency departments — more than any other area hospital. NewYork-Presbyterian provides state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine at five major centers: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/The Allen Pavilion and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division. One of the largest and most comprehensive health care institutions in the world, the Hospital is committed to excellence in patient care, research, education and community service. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area and is consistently ranked among the best academic medical institutions in the nation, according to U.S.News & World Report. The Hospital has academic affiliations with two of the nation’s leading medical colleges: Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. For more information, visit www.nyp.org.