Mount Sinai South Nassau
Situation
Mount Sinai South Nassau is a general hospital in Long Island, New York, that joined the Mount Sinai Health System in 2018 (officially renamed from South Nassau Communities Hospital to Mount Sinai South Nassau in 2019). Staff across the hospital regularly encounter patients who are struggling to cope with hospitalization or showing signs of escalating behavior—not only in behavioral health, but throughout the emergency room and medical floors. That range of exposure meant Mount Sinai South Nassau needed a training program that could travel with staff wherever behavioral risk showed up—not one confined to a single unit.
Jacki Rosen, a psychiatric mental health clinical nurse specialist and longtime CPI champion, works across all of it. Her role reaches patients who are potentially aggressive or aggressive, staff who need emotional support after a difficult situation or a disaster response, and the administrative side of safety, working alongside security, social work, physicians, and nursing education to shape hospital policy. As she transitions toward retirement in 2026, Mount Sinai is focusing on building a sustainable program that can thrive beyond any one individual through strong processes, instructor development, and organizational buy-in.
Solution
Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Training has been part of Mount Sinai South Nassau's culture since 2000, with Rosen serving as a Certified Instructor since 2007. She built her approach around real-world applications. “You can apply it not only in the workplace, but outside of the workplace as well,” she said. “No matter where you are.”
Rosen and her co-instructors also relied directly on CPI when questions came up mid-class. “We'd go to the phone and call CPI,” she said. “When we got a question that we didn't know how to answer or we weren't sure, we'd get somebody on, or we'd follow up. And that still stands.”
She credits that same feedback loop—years of Certified Instructors across organizations raising questions — with shaping CPI's own curriculum, including its 3rd Edition. “It's not like one or two people say, ‘No, this is the way it is.’ They use what their Certified Instructors have given them,” she said. “It's almost like each arm feeds the next.”
That responsiveness, paired with CPI's shift toward letting facilities tailor training to their own needs, kept Rosen advocating for the program. “You've gotten much more open to the idea that different facilities have different needs,” she said, “and that we have to spend the time on the things that really fit with our institution.”
Results
Years of sustained Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Training at Mount Sinai South Nassau have delivered:
- A training program embedded across departments—not just behavioral health, but the emergency room, medical floors, security, and nursing education
- System-wide adoption of CPI training
- Staff adoption, which has grown from mandatory participation to active demand, with additional units requesting CPI training as workplace violence concerns increase
- Fewer Code Gray calls, reduced staff injuries, and stronger staff confidence in managing challenging patient interactions
“I feel very strongly that the support that this organization gives... at any time, I could call and get whatever it was I was looking for.”
Jacki Rosen
MS, RN, PMHCNS-BC, NC-BC
Psych/Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist, Mount Sinai South Nassau
To learn more about how CPI programs can support your staff, connect with us. Our team is ready to guide you in creating a customized crisis prevention training approach that drives improved outcomes across departments.