HHA Resources
National Nurses Month Special: Saluting Years of Dedicated Service
May 11, 2022–This year, in celebration of National Nurses Month, VNSNY honors—and thanks— all of the nurses whose hard work and dedication make such a vital and colossal contribution, and difference, to the lives of our patients, clients and members across the organization. As a special highlight, Frontline spoke to the longest-serving nurses in each part of the organization. Click on their names to go directly to their stories or just scroll here to read them all! Myrna Agosto Susan Banner Myra Cohen Eloise Goldberg Lisa Miller Elisabeth Regis Karen Terry Betty Velez Nancy Washburn Deborah Wilson Myrna Agosto, Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Queens/Brooklyn Mobile Crisis Unit, Behavioral Health — 33 years at VNSNY “I see the possibilities.” As a psychiatric nurse practitioner in the Queens/Brooklyn Mobile Crisis Unit, Myrna Agosto spends her days working with vulnerable patients at very difficult times in their lives. “Typically, we’ll get a referral
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¡Esto es lo que dijeron algunos miembros del equipo de HHA sobre la nueva aplicación HHAx!
May 8, 2023–¡VNS Health siempre está buscando nuevas formas de apoyarle y facilitarle la atención a sus clientes! La nueva aplicación para teléfono HHAeXchange (HHAx) le permite registrar la entrada y salida de las visitas de los pacientes más fácilmente. Además, la aplicación HHAx le permite documentar las tareas completadas de forma más rápida y sencilla. Todo esto puede incluso acelerar el tiempo de procesamiento de su chequede pago. ¿Y cómo le está yendo? Nos comunicamos con varios miembros del equipo de asistentes de atención médica a domicilio para saber su opinión sobre la nueva aplicación y descubrir si les gusta ganar puntos VNS Health Rewards por usarla. Esto es lo que dijeron: “Es fácil, aunque me costó un poco acostumbrarme.” —Tamika Jordan, Manhattan “La aplicación HHAx es muy fácil y directa, aunque me costó un poco acostumbrarme. Es mucho más simple que nuestro sistema anterior y fue muy fácil redimir mis
Nurses Month Special: A Day in the Life of Brooklyn Nurse Preceptor Bridget McQuilkin
May 8, 2023–Welcome to another edition of “A Day in the Life”—a Frontline series that follows staff members from different parts of VNS Health as they go about a typical day at work. Frontline recently met up with Bridget McQuilken, who works in VNS Health Home Care’s Brooklyn region as a nurse preceptor. In this role, which is part of VNS Health’s Nurse Residency Program, she mentors recent nursing school graduates who are just starting out in the home care field. Bridget has been with the organization since 2018. Born in Grenada and raised in England, she was a schoolteacher before transitioning into the health care field. With over a decade of nursing experience in both the hospital and the home under her belt, she started at VNS Health as a field nurse in Manhattan before becoming a nurse preceptor last year. We asked Bridget to take us through a typical day
Ask VNS Health: “How Do You Deliver Solutions That Are Simple to Understand, Easy to Access and Meaningful in Outcomes?”
May 2, 2023–In this latest episode of “Ask VNS Health,” team members from across the organization explain how they strive to make health care simple to understand, easy to access, and meaningful in outcomes for the 49,000 people in our care on any given day. To view more Ask VNS Health videos with VNS Health team members, please click here.
Here’s What Some HHA Team Members Had to Say About the New HHAx App!
April 28, 2023–VNS Health is always looking for new ways to support you and make it easier for you to deliver care to your clients. The new HHAeXchange phone app (HHAx) allows you to clock in and clock out of patient visits more easily. In addition, the HHAx app lets you document tasks completed faster and more easily. All this can even speed up processing time for your paycheck. So how’s it going? We connected with several home health aide team members to get their take on the new app and find out how they like earning VNS Health Rewards points for using it. Here’s what they had to say: “It is easy, though it took some getting used to.” —Tamika Jordan, Manhattan “The HHAx app is very easy and straightforward, though it did take some getting used to. It is much simpler than our previous system, and it was very easy
Team Members in the News: March Highlights
April 6, 2023–Talk about a jam-packed month! From The New York Times to the Albany Times Union, from The New York Daily News to NY1 Noticias, news organizations featured many VNS Health team members this past month. Team members making news in March included: Below, you’ll learn more about each media placement as well as find links to the actual articles. The New York Times Highlights VNS Health in Story on the Importance of Medical Escorts A new story for the “New Old Age” column in The New York Times details the need for medical escorts to help individuals who need someone to accompany them to/from outpatient procedures involving anesthesia. In the piece, “You May Need That Procedure. But Do You Really Need an Escort?” VNS Health is highlighted for the important role they play by offering medical escort services. Read the whole piece on Frontline here. The Times Union Features
When HHA Sharon Davis Referred Andrea Wilson to Become an HHA…
April 5, 2023–It Was a Win-Win! Sharon Got an Employee Referral Bonus, and Andrea Got HHA Training—and the Perfect Weekend Job! One of the best ways that VNS Health hires home health aides and clinicians is through referrals from our own team members. All referrals are welcome—whether you’re referring a relative, a friend, a colleague you used to work with, or even a casual acquaintance. As you’ll see in the following story, it’s easy to refer someone. While bonus amounts vary depending on the position and location of the job, if you refer a home health aide you could receive a bonus for as much as $500! To learn more and to find out how to make a referral, click here. The Team Members: Sharon Davis, Home Health Aide, Queens Andrea Wilson, Weekend Home Health Aide, Brooklyn The Backstory: Sharon: Andrea and I met about 20 years ago, when our children were
Minority Nurse Spotlights Esther Conteh as a Champion of Nursing Diversity
March 29, 2023–
Queens Voice Features Story From HHA Supervisor Jorene Peters on the Importance of Supporting New Team Members, with HHA Jasmin Fearon
March 28, 2023–
Currently, a Patient’s Sepsis History Is Invisible to Home Care Clinicians. Our Research Center Wants to Change That.
March 16, 2023–Sepsis is a dangerous condition that kills several hundred thousand Americans annually. It occurs when the body’s own immune system responds to an infection with a massive overreaction. Some 1.4 million sepsis survivors are discharged from U.S. hospitals each year, and about 40% of these patients end up back in the hospital within 90 days due to reinfection or lingering effects of the sepsis episode. Making the Case for a New “Sepsis Aftercare” ICD Code To improve outcomes for sepsis patients following hospital discharge, earlier this month, researchers from our VNS Health Center for Home Care Policy & Research and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing met with a committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to make the case for adding a new “Sepsis aftercare” diagnostic code to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) listing. The researchers’ recommendation was based on what they discovered when