Professional Interests

Dr. Belinda Ostrowsky has recently made a transition as a Field Medical Officer for the Centers Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (CDC, DHQP) stationed in NY working closely with the NYSDOH on MDRO such as C. auris.  She remains a Clinical Associate Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.    

Prior to her transition, Dr. Ostrowsky was the Director of Epidemiology, Stewardship, and Infection Prevention. Dr. Ostrowsky acted as the healthcare epidemiologist for Montefiore Health System, overseeing surveillance and reporting of healthcare-associated infections.

Dr. Ostrowsky completed a medical degree at SUNY Stony Brook, internal medicine residency at the Mayo Clinic, an infectious diseases fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health. She served as an Epidemiology Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), addressing issues relating to healthcare acquired infections, resistance and related issues. As an EIS officer, Dr. Ostrowsky led two years of a multi-state infection control initiative (32 healthcare facilities, acute and long term care facilities) to control vancomycin-resistant enterococcus. Her initiative became a model for regional cooperatives and the subject of her first-authored article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Ostrowsky was Director of Communicable Diseases and STD/TB at the Westchester County Department of Health prior to joining the Montefiore Einstein faculty in 2008 to initiate and direct its multi-campus Antibiotic Stewardship Program (ASP).  Together with her team, Dr. Ostrowsky developed a program that is a model in the New York City area, and for which she (and the team) have been recognized regionally and nationally. In 2010-2013, she led a CDC/ AHRQ study on the impact of ASP on C. difficile that lead to the publication of a national toolkit. The ASP received funding from the United Hospital Fund to pilot ASP in the adult ambulatory setting. Dr. Ostrowsky also served as an integral part of Montefiore’s outstanding response efforts to emerging infections such as Ebola and Legionella. 

Dr. Ostrowsky is a Fellow of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), and a member of Einstein’s Leo M. David Society (recognized for distinguished, caring and committed teaching of medical students). She was awarded the Montefiore Department of Medicine Inaugural Humanism in Medicine Award in 2016 and Montefiore President’s Award in 2016. She was on the planning committee for the 2016-2018 SHEA national meeting and co-chaired the 2017 meeting.  She is the current chair of the national SHEA education committee and is a member of the national planning committee for the 2020 IDWeek Meeting.