Harlem Hospital’s new Adult Sickle Cell Clinic now runs full days on Mondays and Fridays, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. NYC Health + Hospitals announced the expanded hours Wednesday, September 16, during Sickle Cell Awareness Month.
The clinic opened in January inside the hospital’s Adult Primary Care service at NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem. It works as a medical home: adults living with the disease get sickle cell care, preventive care and chronic-disease care from one team in one place, and the same primary care physician who treats their sickle cell disease also handles routine care such as a flu shot or a blood pressure check.
Services at the clinic include hydroxyurea and other preventive medications that lower the risk of severe symptoms, preventive screening tests, pain management, care navigation and reproductive counseling. The team also includes a social worker and a community health worker who help patients with mental health needs such as depression and anxiety and with problems such as food insecurity and unstable housing.
Sickle cell disease is a genetic disorder that causes anemia, pain, organ damage and early death. It affects about 100,000 people in the United States and about 10,000 in New York State, and it predominantly affects people of color, specifically those with ancestry in sub-Saharan Africa. Its signature feature is the vaso-occlusive pain crisis, an unpredictable episode of severe, debilitating pain that often sends patients to the emergency room. The clinic’s approach is that consistent preventive care can reduce how often and how severely those crises occur.
Dr. Yong Eun, who leads the clinical team, framed the extended hours as a response to patients rather than a policy rollout. “Adults living with sickle cell disease deserve what every other adult expects from primary care: a medical home, with a doctor of their own who manages their sickle cell disease together with their overall health, and a team that handles the pain, the paperwork, and the follow-up as one,” said Eun, who serves as attending physician in Adult Primary Care and clinical lead of the Sickle Cell Disease Primary Care Program. “That is what we built at Harlem Hospital, and the extended hours are a direct response to what our patients told us they needed.”
Georges H. Leconte, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, called the expansion “another major victory for the Harlem community.” Patients, he said, “can now leverage access to consistent, coordinated and culturally-competent care to better manage their health, reduce preventable complications, and ensure they receive the exceptional clinical expertise they deserve.”
NYC Health + Hospitals says it is one of the largest providers of sickle cell care in the country. The system runs ten sickle cell clinics across the city: seven for pediatric patients and three for adults. On the adult side, that is Harlem, Kings County, and Queens. Pediatric care runs out of Harlem, Jacobi, Kings County, Lincoln, Metropolitan, North Central Bronx, and Queens.
“NYC Health + Hospitals is committed to health equity and comprehensive care,” said Nichola Davis, MD, MS, the system’s chief population health officer. “By leveraging in-house sickle cell disease expertise and promoting cross-facility collaboration, we are prioritizing the care of a patient population that is often neglected in healthcare.”
Featured image: Jim.henderson via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain, modified
