For Lauren Campbell, Weathering Storms Is All in a Day’s Work

September 24, 2020–Every day, VNSNY’s staff serves as a lifeline for vulnerable New Yorkers in their homes and communities, knocking on doors or conducting telehealth visits to provide care and connection. That lifeline is all the more critical in times of emergency, when pandemics, storms, power outages and the like threaten to cut our patients and plan members off from much-needed care. Long before those knocks on doors or telehealth visits take place, however, the VNSNY Emergency Response team is hard at work making sure that our staff is prepared and that the right people have the right resources, support and knowledge in the right place at the right time to deliver the right care to those who need it. “Our Emergency Response team pulls expertise from those staff members who are most knowledgeable about the organization,” says Lauren Campbell, Emergency Response Systems Manager. The team follows the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s

An Important Video Message from VNSNY’s Future CEO, Dan Savitt

September 21, 2020–On February 1st, 2021, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Dan Savitt will become the next President and CEO of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. In this special video message to VNSNY staff, Dan introduces himself and shares his thoughts on VNSNY’s future direction. To view Dan’s video, click on the arrow below.

New Community Collaborations Program Aims to Strengthen VNSNY’s Connection to the Community

September 17, 2020–Teresa Lin has been “embedding VNSNY in New York’s Chinese community” for 11 years. As Director of Cultural Market Development Initiatives, Teresa oversees VNSNY Community Centers in Chinatown and Flushing. Before COVID-19, they were open to everyone and bustling with free activities, seven days a week. Bilingual staffers answered questions about VNSNY and worked closely with CHOICE, VNSNY Hospice, Partners in Care, CMHS and other VNSNY departments to host events to increase the awareness of VNSNY’s wide range of services available to the communities at large. The Centers also hosted representatives from the city government and community-based organizations (CBOs) who helped people enroll for benefits like SNAP (food stamps), reduced MTA fares for the elderly, free legal services and more. And there were English, tai chi, arts-and-crafts classes as well as many health education workshops provided by the community- and hospital-based providers. “All our efforts—the Community Centers, our outreach to physicians in growing Chinese communities in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, and our collaborations with

Top 10 Reasons Why VNSNY Is Switching to Zoom as Its Video-Conferencing Platform

August 27, 2020–In mid-March, as COVID-19 engulfed the New York area, VNSNY shifted practically overnight to a largely virtual operation, using a variety of applications for its virtual meetings. In August, after five months of testing different applications, VNSNY will be switching to Zoom as its virtual meeting solution. Zoom has been selected as the virtual meeting application of choice to be used across the organization as well as for virtual visits with patients in several of the clinical areas. The addition of Zoom is about getting ready for a post-COVID world, according to Brent Flack-Davison, Vice President, Strategy, Performance, and Innovation. “No one knows what our workplaces will look like in the immediate future,” says Brent, “but we want VNSNY to be as prepared as possible. One key to this is having a flexible, easy-to-use video conferencing platform. Flexibility is especially important for virtual visits, which are still evolving across the

VNSNY Employee Support Calls Provide Comfort and Social Connection

August 19, 2020–When VNSNY began doing telephone support calls for employees during the coronavirus pandemic’s spring peak, Amanda Weiner, VNSNY Organizational Development Specialist, recalls how moving it was to see such widespread and immediate response to the support. “We had 168 people phone in to the first call for Partners in Care home health aides, then 178 for the second—so we knew we were on to something right away,” she says. Amanda, who has been with VNSNY 15 years, teamed up with VNSNY Hospice Lead Social Worker Ben Cirlin to organize the emotional support calls—several of which Ben hosts himself. “I hope it reduces the stigma for people around asking for help,” she notes. “The powerful words I’ve heard from our committed staff will never leave me.” The earliest support calls were area-specific, including calls tailored to home health aides, and CHHA managers and field staff. Then it became apparent that open-staff

VNSNY Hospice Bereavement and Emotional Support Team and Marki Flannery Are Honored in Crain’s 2020 “Notable in Health Care” Special Report

August 10, 2020–In recognition of their tireless support of VNSNY’s own staff during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the impact their work has had on the larger community, the VNSNY Hospice Bereavement and Emotional Support Team and VNSNY’s President and CEO Marki Flannery have been honored in the Crain’s New York Business 2020 “Notable in Health Care” special report. The Crain’s annual “Notable” list was expanded this year to include individuals and select teams who helped lead the effort to combat the COVID-19 emergency in the New York metropolitan area. “This year’s Notable in Health Care special report… features the people who helped bend the region’s steep infection curve downward and are still working to alleviate the economic and humanitarian toll,” says Crain’s, and also honors “those working to fight health care disparities and other societal problems that the pandemic accentuated.” The VNSNY Hospice Bereavement and Emotional Support Team began as a

UHF Honors Tim Peng for Work with VNSNY’s Business Intelligence & Analytics Team on Medicaid Payment Reform

July 29, 2020–Tim Peng, Chief Data Analytics Officer and head of VNSNY’s Business Intelligence & Analytics (BIA) group, has been honored by the United Hospital Fund (UHF) as one of the recipients of its 2020 Excellence in Health Care Award. The award, given to “outstanding individuals whose vision and accomplishments are driving improvements across the full continuum of care,” was presented to Tim and his fellow awardees in a virtual celebration on July 13th. Tim was recognized for his work with the BIA team and others at VNSNY to design a fairer Medicaid reimbursement model. Thanks to this work, VNSNY CHOICE will now be able to provide the comprehensive services to its sickest and most vulnerable members that it is known for, without concerns that it will lose money on these services because of inadequate payments from Medicaid. “Basically, sicker clients need more services,” says Tim. “Mission-driven not-for-profits like VNSNY were in

How VNSNY’s Education Department Innovated to Train and Support Staff During the Pandemic

July 23, 2020–As the COVID-19 pandemic hit the New York metropolitan area last March, VNSNY’s Education Department had to leap to the occasion and find a way to continue providing training and support to VNSNY staff in an environment where social distancing and infection control were suddenly paramount. “Having to move on a dime and begin educating virtually in such a short turnaround time was a challenge,” says Elizer Cooper-Audain, Director of Education & Professional Development, Clinical Support Services. “My entire team did an amazing job in response to COVID-19. We were in the last week of our March orientation when we had to pack up and prepare to work remotely. We completed the orientation virtually, and then prepared for subsequent months of new hire orientation, as well as the new nurse resident program.” Accomplishing all this, Elizer adds, involved “setting up virtual orientation, training everyone on how to use the platform

10 Important Safety Measures for When Staff Return to 220 East 42nd Street on July 27

July 21, 2020–This Monday, July 27th, approximately 150 staff members will return to work at our 220 East 42nd Street office in Stage One of Operation Workplace. When they do, they can be confident that VNSNY and the building management have taken extensive steps to keep the office safe. Here are 10 important safety measures that have been put in place at 220: Home health screenings before work Each morning before heading off to work at 220, all Stage One employees will be required to take a self-assessment checklist of potential COVID-19 symptoms. If a potential symptom is noted, that employee will stay home that day. Lobby temperature checks and social distancing on the 220 East 42nd Street elevators Everyone entering the 220 East 42nd Street lobby and the East 41st Street Partners in Care lobby will have their temperature checked. Anyone who has a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher will

Enterprise

Check Out the Latest “VNSNY in the News” Media Highlights!

Related Articles