NYC Health + Hospitals' Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Care and Population Health Dr. Ted Long Named to Crain's New York "40 Under 40" List
Dr. Long is recognized for his work leading New York City’s response to the asylum seeker crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, and for extending access to primary care and outpatient services for thousands of New Yorkers through founding NYC Care, New York City’s first universal access program
Nov 08, 2023
Ted Long, MD, MHS, Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Care and Population Health at NYC Health + Hospitals, has been named to the Crain’s New York 2023 “40 Under Forty” list in recognition of his work leading New York City’s response to the asylum seeker crisis and COVID-19 pandemic. As the leader of NYC Health + Hospitals’ Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers (HERRCs), Dr. Long created a network of 16 humanitarian centers that currently house 22,000 asylum seekers. He also launched the city’s Arrival Center, a central intake to register and provide medical and social services to new arrivals that has welcomed over 70,000 people to date.
As the former Executive Director of the NYC Test & Trace Corps (T2), Dr. Long led the City’s effort to provide accessible, no-cost COVID-19 testing and vaccinations, and resources for those infected or exposed, enabling them to quarantine or isolate. T2 also partnered with the Department of Education to make NYC the first big city in the country to offer safe in person education, which became a cornerstone of New York’s response to the pandemic.
Under Dr. Long’s leadership, NYC Health + Hospitals has reduced wait times for new primary care patient appointments by 50% and, for the first time in a decade, expanded the number of primary care patients in the public healthcare system. These improvements in access to care and growth in primary care contributed to the elimination of a $1.8 billion structural deficit, and most recently outpatient revenue increasing by $165 million from 2021 to 2022. Dr. Long, who joined NYC Health + Hospitals in 2018, is a primary care physician who sees his patients at NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health, Morrisania.
“I’m grateful to be recognized on Crain’s ‘40 Under 40’ list, but this honor wouldn’t be possible without the dedication, brilliance, and compassion of my colleagues. The amazing team of people I work with has risen to the occasion to deliver life-saving care to millions of New Yorkers and those seeking a better life in our city,” said Dr. Long. “I am so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish together and to be part of a forward-thinking, mission-driven organization that believes in the human right to dignified, comprehensive health care. Thank you to my patients and all New Yorkers who have put their trust in me, and to my family for their unwavering love and support.”
“Since coming to City Hall, I have worked closely with Dr. Long and his team at NYC Health + Hospitals, first during the Omicron wave of COVID-19 and most recently on the asylum seeker response effort,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom. “Ted brings energy, thoughtfulness, and an open heart to his work. He is always ready and willing to help and find novel ways to serve all New Yorkers. Congratulations on this honor, Ted, and thank you for your work and friendship.”
“There are few people more deserving of this recognition than Dr. Long and I am grateful not only to have him as a colleague, but that New York was able to benefit from his dedication, strategic thinking, resourcefulness, and commitment to quality, expert healthcare during our most challenging days of the pandemic,” said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD. “What sets Ted apart is his boundless kindness and contagious optimism. While Ted was central to our COVID-19 response, his leadership and vision have perhaps been most noticeable responding to the city’s asylum seeker crisis, which has provided the promise of a better life to tens of thousands of people who turned to New York City for help. NYC Health + Hospitals is lucky to have Ted on its team.”
In response to New York City’s historic influx of asylum seekers, Dr. Long established the city’s Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers and Arrival Center. He currently oversees NYC Health + Hospitals’ 16 humanitarian centers that ensure that the over 22,000 people they currently house — three quarters of whom are families with children — receive humane, dignified care and the services they need to take the next steps in their path for a better life. These facilities ensure asylum seekers and their children have on-site access to medical and mental health care, nutrition, language services, school enrollment, social programs, reunification and case management resources. As of October 2023, staff at the humanitarian centers and Arrival Center have welcomed over 70,000 asylum seekers, helped over 14,000 asylum seekers apply for health insurance, and administered over 40,000 vaccines.
In May 2020, Dr. Long was appointed Executive Director of the NYC Test & Trace Corps where he established and led the City’s comprehensive operational response to COVID-19, developing all plans to test, trace and provide resources for every case and contact of COVID-19. During the Test & Trace Corps’ operations, which sunset in May of 2023, its staff administered over 14 million free COVID tests, distributed over 100 million free at-home COVID tests, administered over 2 million COVID-19 vaccines, reached 1.7 million COVID-positive cases, identified 1.8 million close contacts of positive cases, provided over 600,000 care packages to those in isolation or quarantine, helped 33,000 New Yorkers safely stay in isolation hotels, and launched the nation’s first mobile Test to Treat program, providing onsite access to Paxlovid minutes after a positive test. T2 also worked with with the Department of Education to create the Situation Room, which evaluated school safety and enabled New York City to be the first major city in the country to reopen in-person education. T2 also was responsible for running CitiField, a mass vaccination center operating 24/7 when the COVID vaccine became available and administered more vaccines than any other city-run site. Through these combined efforts, the Corps was able to break chains of COVID-19 transmission, saving thousands of lives and avoiding thousands more adverse health outcomes. Dr. Long also spearheaded the development of three new COVID-19 Centers of Excellence with a focus on providing Long COVID services in the neighborhoods hit hardest by the pandemic.
Dr. Long is responsible for leading one of the nation’s largest Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) and transforming the health system’s current portfolio of ambulatory care, with nearly 6 million outpatient visits per year, into an integrated and high-quality network providing care to all New Yorkers, without exception. In 2019 Dr. Long established NYC Care, the city’s first access to care program for New Yorkers who are undocumented or low income. To date, the program has enrolled more than 120,000 people, half of whom did not have a primary care provider when they enrolled.
He previously served as senior medical officer for the Quality Measurement and Value-Based Incentives Group at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), where he led more than 20 federal programs, including the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program and the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program. Before coming to CMS, Dr. Long served as medical director at the Rhode Island State Department of Health, where he led health care planning for the State. He was principal author for the first statewide evaluation of health service capacity and access to care, with a focus on primary care capacity and need.
Dr. Long did his undergraduate work, residency training and post-graduate master’s work in health services research at Yale University. He has authored over 50 peer reviewed articles that have been published in journals including JAMA, Nature, and Lancet Public Health. Dr. Long is a Clinical Professor at NYU Langone’s Department of Population Health, and serves as faculty at the Yale School of Medicine and the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care where he teaches about health policy and administration.
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NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest public health care system in the nation serving more than a million New Yorkers annually in more than 70 patient care locations across the city’s five boroughs. A robust network of outpatient, neighborhood-based primary and specialty care centers anchors care coordination with the system’s trauma centers, nursing homes, post-acute care centers, home care agency, and MetroPlus health plan—all supported by 11 essential hospitals. Its diverse workforce of more than 42,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/NYCHealthSystem or Twitter at @NYCHealthSystem.