Meet The Team Meet The Team

Dr. Edwidge Thomas leads the Mount Sinai PPS in its DSRIP clinical implementation activties. As Medical Director, she facilitates the clinical efforts on planning and implementing the clinical projects and monitoring the performance of the DSRIP projects, including leading the Equity Infrastructure and Equity Performance programs.

Prior to her role in with MSPPS, Dr. Thomas served as Clinical Director of Practice Affairs at New York University College of Nursing and Clinical Director at Columbia University School of Nursing. She led practice and community engagement initiatives while implementing new practice models with advanced practice nurses by integrating primary and behavioral health with dental care. She began her career as an adult nurse practitioner with an interest in Diabetes and obesity management. Dr. Thomas received her undergraduate degree in Nursing at Rutgers University, Masters of Science and Doctorate of Nursing Practice at Columbia University School of Nursing.

Patti Cuartas serves as Senior Director of Information Technology, Population Health and Payer Systems at MSPPS. She is responsible for leading the development and implementation of high quality IT services to support DSRIP and population health related activities for Medicaid patients.  

Patti comes to us with 17 years of clinical experience as a physician assistant, managing patients in various inpatient and outpatient settings including the emergency departments and the surgical intensive care units at city hospitals, the inpatient oncology unit at New York Presbyterian, and the outpatient clinics located within homeless shelters at The Floating Hospital. She also serves as Clinical Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University where she teaches in the Masters Physician Assistant Program. 

Prior to her work at Mount Sinai, Patti led the charge in facilitating clinical solutions at Montefiore and was a part of the procurement of and transition to a new EMR solution at the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation (HHC). Patti is certified in Project Management, and holds a MBA in Healthcare Management from Baruch College and a degree in Biochemistry and Psychology from Stony Brook University. 

As Director of Performance Improvement, Neil Patel is responsible for leading efforts with PPS partners to achieve pay for performance (P4P) measures and improve overall patient outcomes. He also oversees deliverables across the ten MSPPS DSRIP projects and manages both the MSPPS’ Clinical Quality Committee and Chief Medical Officer Council.  

Prior to his role with MSPPS, Neil managed the DSRIP Program at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, Texas, valued at $211M in incentive payments. The program consisted of nine distinct clinical projects serving 700,000+ client encounters and 13 P4P performance measures.  Neil also worked at Baylor College of Medicine project managing multiple initiatives on behalf of the institution’s President and Chief of Staff. Neil received his BBA in Finance as well as MBA and MHA degrees from University of Houston System.    

Sam Sarkissian serves as Medicaid Informatics Director and leads analytics and performance reporting for MSPPS. His responsibilities include leveraging a portfolio of data analytics sources and tools to enable data driven strategic decisions for the PPS. Sam is also responsible for defining, executing and supporting the development of analytic tools created by the PPS staff.

Prior to joining MSPPS, Sam worked at Montefiore Medical Center.  In that role he served as Director for Data Reporting and Analytics and directed a group responsible for data analysis for all Behavioral Health programs.  He has served as the subject matter expert on his team for reporting related to Epic, finance and clinical utilization, Health Home programs, and the Medicaid Data Warehouse, among others. Sam completed his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the State University at Albany and his MPA at NYU in Nonprofit Management.

As the Director of Audit & Compliance, Michael Martinucci is responsible for ensuring that MSPPS is maintaining the highest level of regulatory compliance, while satisfying all state and federal requirements for an effective compliance program.  Michael also monitors compliance with New York State Department of Health Medicaid guidelines for DSRIP. 
 
Michael has over 20 years of auditing and consulting experience at public accounting firms specializing in audit and financial consulting services for health care organizations, including hospital systems, home care agencies, diagnostic & treatment centers, FQHCs, and skilled nursing homes. He is a certified public account in New York and Wisconsin and received his undergraduate degree in Accounting from the University of Rhode Island. He is also a member of the AICPA and the New York State Society of CPA’s.