Gino Santorio, President & CEO, Mount Sinai Medical Center

Invest: spoke with Gino Santorio, president and CEO of Mount Sinai Medical Center, about expanding access across Miami-Dade while investing in specialty care, workforce culture, and research. “No one has a monopoly on the best ideas,” Santorio said.

What is your long-term strategic vision for Mount Sinai Medical Center, and how do current initiatives reflect that vision?
Our long-term vision is to remain the trusted healthcare provider for the communities we serve. Miami is growing quickly, and healthcare demand is rising even faster. The goal is to keep delivering world-class medical expertise in a compassionate way. To do that, we have to recruit strategically, invest in facilities closer to where people live, and foster the culture and brand we have built.

Mount Sinai has opened new outpatient and Eldercare facilities to reach underserved populations. How do these fit into your broader mission to improve care access?
Our mission has remained unchanged for 75 years. We provide more charity care as a percent of net revenue than 99% of hospitals nationally. Expanding into underserved areas is part of bringing high-quality care closer to home, regardless of ability to pay. In markets like Hialeah and Westchester, tens of thousands of people travel more than five miles for care, and in Miami traffic, five miles can take a long time.

Our medical center on the beach is a tertiary and quaternary destination, drawing patients from more than 30 zip codes. The satellites and outpatient sites improve convenience and access, while maintaining the quality and patient connection that define us.

Mount Sinai has been named one of America’s 100 Best Hospitals. How do you sustain and build upon that level of clinical excellence across all service lines?
Recognition across patient experience, outcomes, and digital maturity reinforces the strength of our operating model and, especially, the consistency of execution. Consistency matters even more when you are growing quickly.

We sustain excellence by advancing specialty and high-acuity services aligned with local needs, and by making targeted investments in technology and infrastructure that support quality, efficiency, and scalability. We have more than a dozen AI platforms integrated into clinical workflows to help drive standardization and performance across sites. Physician recruitment and workforce stability are also central to sustaining results year after year.

The Eldercare Program offers comprehensive services designed to help seniors delay or avoid nursing facility placement. How do you measure the center’s success?
We measure success through enrollment and retention. We have more than 170 enrollees and add about five to six a month, with low attrition. Once people understand the service and get acclimated, they are extraordinarily satisfied.

The program helps seniors stay at home, maintain independence, and receive comprehensive care with multiple providers coordinating in one place. Keeping people out of long-term care settings can also support mental well-being. When our teams assess the home environment and recommend ways to improve accessibility, patients and families feel cared for and supported, not treated like a number.

As a teaching hospital, how is Mount Sinai advancing its research programs and clinical trials?
We have expanded teaching by adding two programs in recent years: pulmonary and critical care and electrophysiology. Today, we train more than 230 residents and fellows and about 450 medical students annually.

Research is essential to advancing clinical care, from basic science through translational work and into clinical trials. What is most exciting is seeing ideas move from paper to patient treatment. In gynecologic oncology, for example, we have more than 30 endometrial and ovarian cancer trials open. In the last five years, some of that work has progressed from research concepts into trials that are improving survivorship and changing the standard of care. That is what it looks like to translate innovation into better care.

Mount Sinai’s Community Health Improvement Plan includes goals for increasing access to mental and behavioral health services. How are you addressing these needs?
Behavioral health is an area where many hospitals have reduced services, often for financial reasons. We are expanding because it is part of our mission. We have increased recruitment and broadened services, including long-acting injectable clinics, advanced treatments such as TMS and ECT, and S-ketamine clinics, along with participation in clinical trials.

We also partner with municipalities and community organizations to provide behavioral health education and assessments, including for the workforce. Many people do not know how to access services until they reach an acute setting. We also invest internally, offering wellness resources for physicians and employees supported by our behavioral health expertise.

What are your priorities for workforce development, retention, and organizational culture in a competitive healthcare labor market?
There is a nationwide workforce shortage, and competition is intense. Compensation must be competitive, but culture is where organizations can differentiate. Our priorities are investing in employees and building leaders from within.

That includes supporting work-life balance, expanding development opportunities through scholarships and continuing education, and rolling out internal leadership development. Succession from within is one of the most powerful ways to sustain culture, and it strengthens stability as we grow.

What have been the most significant challenges since you became CEO, and how have you navigated them while maintaining quality and service delivery?
The last few years have reinforced that healthcare is operating in sustained complexity: higher costs, constrained labor, and rising demand. Navigating that requires disciplined execution and strengthening the fundamentals that support long-term performance.

What opportunities do you see for Mount Sinai, and for the healthcare industry, in the coming years?
South Florida has become a global pivot point for residents, business, and international access. That creates an opportunity for Miami to be recognized as a leading healthcare hub. In recent years, we have recruited and retained top specialists, expanded research, and increased participation in leading-edge trials.

Ten years ago, many patients with the means traveled elsewhere for the care they believed was best. Increasingly, we are seeing people travel to Miami for specialty services. The opportunity now is to continue building that ecosystem and make sure the broader market recognizes the depth of clinical expertise and innovation available here.

What are your priorities going forward, and what can you share about your leadership approach at Mount Sinai?
My leadership approach is to harness the strengths of the team, from frontline staff through the executive level. When you build a disciplined team and make space for people to excel, the organization moves faster and performs better. We have doubled our net revenue in five years because of the people here and the way they deliver care.

No one has a monopoly on the best ideas, and our job as leaders is to seek them out, listen, and put them into action. More broadly, education, housing, and healthcare are major economic anchors, and strong healthcare systems are foundational to regional competitiveness. We take seriously Mount Sinai’s role in delivering clinical excellence while supporting the broader health resilience of the region. We view other providers as partners, not competitors, because no hospital can be the best at everything, and the community is stronger when healthcare works together.