Health & Wellness
Prissana Alston Named Interim Executive Director of Interfaith Medical Center

By Mary Alice Miller
Prissana Alston spent decades of her career in nursing leadership: Nurse Manager and Director of Patient Care Services at The New York Hospital (now known as New York Presbyterian), Vice President for Nursing at Silvercrest Center Nursing Rehabilitation, Deputy Director of Nursing at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Assistant Vice President Patient Care Services at Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center, Administrator on Duty for Harlem Hospital, and Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Interfaith Medical Center.
That leadership experience has served her well. On January 1, Alston was appointed Interim Executive Director of Interfaith Medical Center.
Born and raised in Queens, Alston was interested in the healthcare professions at an early age. When her sister passed away from leukemia at age 17, Alston said the experience “propelled me to pursue a nursing career. It wasn’t easy.”
Alston has seen the intersection between nursing and all the other services a hospital system would provide. “As a nurse, we would touch all of those ancillary services, but as a nurse, I may not have had that intimacy to know whether the equipment was working or not,” said Alston.
“I would just have seen the end result of maybe a patient being delayed because of [an issue].”
She added, “My current role would allow me to have that intimacy and connection with the ancillary departments and knowing what would be actually preventing patients from receiving their tests or procedures and things of that nature.”
Alston explained that nursing leadership is separate from her current position as interim executive director. “As the chief nurse executive, my responsibility was nursing practice, procedures, and policies. In this Interim Executive Director role, I am responsible for everything, including nursing.”
Recognizing that Interfaith Medical Center has a long-standing reputation in the community for providing comprehensive mental health services, Alston said, “We do have strong mental health service here. We also have operative services here.
We have medical surgery, telemetry, emergency services… I think that we need to identify other services that we are looking to provide because even our mental health patients do need to have surgical procedures; they do need to have medical interventions.
Alston said, “We want to also be financially viable. All hospitals need financial support. The success comes from whether we want to have specific surgeries or operative procedures that we do here. It all goes hand in hand with each other.”
When asked if the gentrification of Bedford Stuyvesant and the surrounding areas is reflected in the patient population at Interfaith, Alston said, “We have been servicing the patients from the community. I have seen a change in the population. We are here to service anyone who wants to come to our organization. We welcome any and everyone. It doesn’t matter what their financial standing is.”
She added, “We are a community hospital that is here to service the community.”
As the newly named Executive Director, Alston said. “There are quite a few things we are looking to embark upon and enhance at Interfaith Medical Center.”
The hospital is looking to improve public reporting metrics. Two psych units are cited for planned construction and refurbishing. Interfaith’s second-floor telemetry unit is under construction. The emergency department is being renovated in phases.
(Telemetry is a portable device that continuously monitors patient vital signs while automatically transmitting information to a central monitor, used on patients for continuous cardiac monitoring, usually after surgery, recovery from a stroke, or blood clots. Major trauma, acute respiratory failure, sepsis, or shock.)
Alston is also looking forward to the integration of new artificial intelligence technology. “We are looking, as best as we can, to bring our hospital up to where organizations are in the digital world so that [there is] a little bit more efficient communication between [our One Brooklyn Health] organizations,” said Alston, “so that patients can come to our hospital, there is that communication that happens.”
Alston said she is looking to continue, enhance, and grow community outreach to improve social determinants of health, from the food security program already implemented by Dr. Easterling to overall patient education, including pregnancy and HIV services at Bishop Walker Health Care Center and diabetes prevention and treatment at Pierre Toussaint Family Health Center.
“We do a lot of outpatient and community services during the summer months,” said Alston. “The listing for these community outreach services is going to be coming out shortly.”
Alston has a message for the community.
“I want to tell the community that I am here. I am here for the community. That is the purpose of Interfaith Medical Center. That is why we are here. We provide respectful care,” Alston said. “If we cannot provide it here at Interfaith Medical Center, that is why we have One Brooklyn Health System. We have connections within that system to provide services that they need.”
She added, “We want to work with the community.
We want the community to feel that they can trust Interfaith Medical Center. We look forward to relationships with the community, working with the elected officials, working with our patients and families, and working with our staff and physicians so that we can make the community have the best experience possible.”
“I am going to work my hardest to make sure that we achieve the best experience for our patients that come here,” said Alston.