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To fix Brooklyn health care, officials tap Cuomo insider
NEW YORK STATE HAS TRIED FOR YEARS to address the sick state of Brooklyn's health care delivery system. Symptoms include hospitals that hemorrhage money, disintegrating facilities and a population in poor health. East New York, for example, has the highest diabetes rate, 18%, in the city.
The latest plan to fix health care in Brooklyn was to tap an insider to Gov. Andrew Cuomo: James Introne (pictured), a former state deputy secretary of health who retired in June 2013. The state Department of Health hired Introne to help manage "the transformation of the health care system in central and eastern Brooklyn," said an agency spokesman, adding that Introne will cajole hospitals to undertake "strategies that can assure the availability of sustainable, high-quality health services in Brooklyn."
That means hospitals must form networks or merge. Last week, Jason Helgerson, the state's Medicaid director, said consolidation makes sense for a hospital like Brookdale Hospital Medical Center,...