• Press Release

Fast Company Names Icahn School of Medicine as One of World's Top Ten Most Innovative Companies in Big Data

Ranked in Big Data Sector for "embracing data scientists and supercomputers to build the hospital of the future"

  • New York
  • (February 11, 2014)

Fast Company has named the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as one of the "World's Top Ten Most Innovative Companies in Big Data" in its 2014 ranking of leading organizations in critical areas.

In honoring Mount Sinai in the sector of big data, Fast Company's editorial team announced that the award was for "embracing data scientists and supercomputers to build the hospital of the future." Fast Company reported, "The New York City hospital is bringing on top Silicon Valley talent to build a facility that will map patients' genomes to predict diseases, reduce the number of average hospital visits, and streamline electronic medical records."

Fast Company named the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as No. 5 in its 2014 ranking of "World's Top Ten Most Innovative Companies in Big Data." Other honorees in Fast Company's Big Data list included global corporations GE (No. 1) and IBM (No. 4) along with fast-growing startup companies such as Kaggle (No. 2) and Ayasdi (No. 3).

The Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company's most significant, high-profile editorial effort of the year. The editorial team spends months gathering and sifting data to identify those enterprises that exemplify the best in business from across the economy and around the world. Fast Company posted the list of top companies innovating in big data here: http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2014/industry/big-data. The list will publish in Fast Company's March 2014 issue, available on newsstands as of February 17.

"We are honored by Fast Company's acknowledgement of the progress that our outstanding team at Mount Sinai is making as we apply big data to better understand, diagnose, and treat disease," said Eric Schadt, PhD, the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, part of the Mount Sinai Health System. "We've made a substantial bet on big data to help us understand the vast network of genes, metabolites, proteins, and environmental factors that drive the function of the human body. In the future, the practice of medicine will be so personalized that physicians will be able to pinpoint what disrupted the network that caused a person's disease, predict the course of the disease, and determine how best to treat or even prevent it."

Jeffrey Hammerbacher, Data Scientist and Assistant Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, stated, "I'm delighted that Fast Company has highlighted our trailblazing work here at Mount Sinai with this honor. Our team seeks to ultimately advance human well-being by understanding the root cause of diseases. We are creating virtual models of the human system that are nearly as complex as we are by harnessing vast amounts of data, performing analysis with supercomputers, and integrating the results with the insights and deep experience of the scientists and clinicians at Mount Sinai."


About the Mount Sinai Health System

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.

Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on FacebookTwitter and YouTube.