NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division
Not only is NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s Westchester Division a contributor to the region’s economic health by being a major employer, but its clinical, research and teaching mission attracts top talent and research dollars.
Affiliated with Weill Cornell Medical College and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, the hospital provides extensive inpatient and outpatient mental health services. U.S. News and World Report ranks New York-Presbyterian as the fifth-best hospital in the country for psychiatric care, and the 230-acre White Plains campus is home to the new Center for Autism and the Developing Brain.
“Academic medical centers attract exciting and diverse talent to their communities,” notes Dr. Philip J. Wilner, M.D., Vice President and Medical Director of Behavioral Health. “We employ almost a thousand people, and we continue to grow as we prepare for the opening of the region’s only comprehensive state-of-the-art autism center.”
The community also benefits from the quality of care.
“We remain committed to our mission of providing quality and invaluable behavioral health services as we have been for the past 118 years,” Wilner says. “As an academic medical center, we are immersed in research, education and training, and offer the finest experts and cutting-edge technology to enable us to provide the best care possible to our patients. We seek to meet that challenge every day.”
The Center for Autism and the Developing Brain, slated to open in early 2013 and employ approximately 60 people, keys on providing multidisciplinary care to patients of all ages with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and other developmental disorders. The center’s goals are to develop best practices, support families to make better decisions, provide gap services and short-term programs, and participate in ASD research
“Our affiliation with a major academic medical institution like NYP attracts significant research dollars, which enables us to see patients who otherwise would not have access to care,” says Dr. Catherine Lord, Ph.D., the Center’s director. “The research is quite practical: how to develop assessment tools and how to change the way parents interact with their child. Through various research studies, we bring parents into the process so the intervention starts as early as possible and continues at home.”
In 2012, the Center received a large National Institutes of Health grant to work with school systems as they focus on children who are not talking by age 5. The center also addresses workplace issues.
“We are interested in working with the business community to find out how it can be economically beneficial for them to hire people with ASD,” Lord says. One program, Project Search, brings high school students with ASD to the hospital for job skills training for future competitive employment.
“Every child is different and every family is different,” Lord says. “Our mission is to give families information and skills. We’ll work with families and their support systems to make good things happen.”
We employ almost a thousand people, and we continue to grow as we
prepare for the opening of the region’s only comprehensive
state-of-the-art autism center. – Dr. Philip J. Wilner, M.D.,
Vice President and Medical Director of Behavioral Health
