Nine Months Later, Here’s How Our Five Final Round Impact Challenge Teams Are Doing
Last September, in the concluding round of our first-ever VNS Health Impact Challenge, five teams of VNS Health employees presented project ideas on how to reduce heath disparities throughout our communities. (You can see a video of their presentations by clicking here.)
The panel of experts that they pitched to was so impressed by the teams’ goals that they decided to fund all five projects. Each team has been hard at work since then. Following up on our earlier 6-month update back in April, here is a report on each Impact Challenge team’s progress to date.
- Expanding VNS Health’s Nurse Residency to Serve Health Care Needs in the Bronx
- Delivering Medical Nutrition Therapy to Bedbound New Yorkers
- Connecting Low-Income Seniors with Outpatient Mental Health Treatment
- Using Community Engagement to Help New Yorkers Access VNS Health’s Health Services and Health Plans
- Supporting Family Caregivers of Patients with Dementia with the DECLARE Tool
Expanding VNS Health’s Nurse Residency to Serve Health Care Needs in the Bronx
The Team:
- Monica Cayemitte, Clinical Field Manager, Home Care
- Elizer Cooper-Audain, Associate Vice President, Education and Development
- Yvonne Eaddy, Vice President, Regional Patient Care Service
- Lawrence Gomes, Student Intern, Financial Planning and Analysis
- Abel Guan, Manager, Financial Planning and Analysis
- Larry Lepelstat, Associate Vice President, Finance and Business Operations
- Dian Traisci-Marandola, Director, Clinical Development Center
- Zachary Saliterman, Financial Analyst, Financial Planning and Analysis
- Executive Sponsor: Tracy Dodd, Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer
Team Proposal:
This program aims to expand VNS Health’s nurse residency initiative by hiring an additional 20 nursing school graduates as nurse residents. The additional nurses will provide direct care to underserved Bronx residents.
- In May, the Clinical Development Center was established to lead the recruitment of nurse residents for the Bronx, as well as all other regions.
- Travel and safety concerns continue to present challenges for nurse recruitment in the Bronx, despite a number of new initiatives in place to attract graduates. These include a recent $10k sign-on bonus for the Bronx, cultivation of new partnerships, and increased outreach to colleges and universities—including adjunct faculty in the classroom, alumni and career centers/career fairs, social media sourcing, and targeted recruitment at VNS Health hiring events.
- A dedicated recruiter has also been assigned for the Nurse Residency Program and a total of six new nurse residents have now been hired.
Delivering Medical Nutrition Therapy to Bedbound New Yorkers
The Team:
- Valarie Brockington, Clinical Field Manager, Home Care
- Tameka McCabe, Director, Quality Care Management
- Executive Sponsor: Andria Castellanos, Executive Vice President and Chief of Provider Services
Team Proposal:
The project’s goal is to improve nutrition for homebound New York City residents by providing them with Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT) that combines guidance from a clinical nutritionist.
What’s New:
- As it continues to prepare for the program’s development, the team has identified three potential pathways for implementing MNT. These are:
- Partnering with outside vendor Culina Health. (The team recently made a presentation to VNS Health’s senior leadership on this option.)
- Collaborating with VNS Health’s Care Management Organization (CMO) to assist with the management of the program. Rose Madden-Baer, SVP, Population Health and Clinical Support Services, who directs the CMO, has met with the team and provided guidance.
- Using the web-based services Wellsky (formerly Healthify) to connect patients with nutritionists in the community.
- The program has also decided to focus on patients with a diagnosis of a chronic/complex wounds, including but not limited to pressure injuries, venous stasis ulcers, and complex surgical wounds. Research shows that there is a direct correlation between the role of nutrition and wound healing. The patients will be selected from VNS Health’s Home Care population, and the program will measure its progress using metrics geared to wound healing and/or wound improvement.
Connecting Low-Income Seniors with Outpatient Mental Health Treatment
The Team:
- Susan Clayton Meyer, Program Manager, Behavioral Health
- Evelyn Pozo, Mental Health Specialist II, Behavioral Health
- Executive Sponsor: Dan Savitt, President and CEO
Team Proposal:
This program is designed to increase outpatient mental health treatment access for low-income seniors by expanding VNS Health’s Geriatric Mental Health Initiative and providing clients with subsidized co-pays and transportation assistance to appointments. The program’s goals include creating a best-practice behavioral health service model that can be incorporated throughout VNS Health.
What’s New:
- Carmen Tirado, Mental Health Specialist in the Bronx Geriatric Outreach Program was highlighted in the Frontline Feature, “A Day in the Life” on May 16th.
- The team has been conducting 16 community outreach events per month, four times the previous rate.
- Manhattan Outreach referrals as well as Bronx and Queens referrals remain steady, while the Manhattan PEARLS program (which provides treatment for depressed seniors) saw a 39% increase in referrals.
- The Foothold AWARDS electronic medical record (EMR) went “live” for the Bronx Geriatric Mental Health Initiative in March and for all Geriatric Outreach Programs in Bronx and Manhattan in June.
- The team has developed income eligibility criteria and an application form that clients can use to access Impact Challenge funds for transportation and co-pay assistance for clinic services. The team has also identified a number of external vendors for partnership opportunities.
- The team conducted nine presentations to VNS Health’s Home Care, CMO, Health Plans and NORC (Naturally Occurring Retirement Community) teams about the Behavioral Health Older Adults Program and its internal referral process.
- The team also collaborated with Business Intelligence and Analytics to develop metrics for program evaluation. This included defining the study population and control group for evaluation, and establishing hospitalization rates as the key evaluation outcome metric.
Using Community Engagement to Help New Yorkers Access VNS Health’s Health Services and Health Plans
The Team:
- Melissa Henry, Director of Operations, Cultural Market Development
- Veronica Torres, Connect2Well Program Manager, Cultural Market Development
- Executive Sponsor: Sue Caputo, Senior Vice President, Business Development
Team Proposal:
The team’s goals are to establish the Connect2Well outreach program—an extension of VNS Health’s HOPE Program—and partner with Community Collaborations in implementing community outreach and patient navigation services to improve access to VNS Health’s Hospice, Home Care, Behavioral Health, and Health Plans among the communities of Harlem and the Bronx.
What’s New:
- In the second quarter of 2022, Connect2Well successfully engaged the Bronx and Harlem communities through health promotion and outreach events, positioning VNS Health as the provider of choice in these communities and building relationships with community-based organizations (CBOs), churches, and other providers who have a shared interest in addressing health disparities. Between April and June, Connect2Well conducted 11 health education forums and facilitated five health fairs with churches and CBOs to increase access and awareness to care options. These activities have created a pathway for referrals of community members to VNS Health’s lines of business, which has already resulted in the enrollment of a number of community residents into various VNS Health programs.
- Going forward, the team plans further outreach to faith-based communities after experiencing great success with New Testament Temple Church of God, which now hosts Medicare reps at their food pantry on a weekly basis. The team also plans to provide more health education presentations and workshops in the future.
- Program Manager Veronica Torres continues to act as community liaison and ambassador, providing counseling to referrers, patients, and families on VNS Health services and support.
- The team is also collaborating with other VNS Health programs to ensure that racially and ethnically diverse patient concerns are addressed appropriately.
- At the end of May, Connect2Well moved from VNS Health’s Business Development team to become part of the Strategy/Cultural Market Development team.
Supporting Family Caregivers of Patients with Dementia with the DECLARE Tool
The Team:
- Julia Burgdorf, Research Scientist, VNS Health Center for Home Care Policy and Research
- David Russell, Research Scientist, VNS Health Center for Home Care Policy and Research
- Executive Sponsor: Tim Peng, Chief Data Analytics Officer
Team Proposal:
Study the needs of family caregivers assisting relatives with dementia and use these findings to develop Dementia Caregivers’ Link to Assistance and Resources (DECLARE), a self-assessment tool that helps caregivers communicate their support needs to the VNS Health care team and also helps care team members connect caregivers with appropriate resources.
What’s New:
- The team has completed its data collection and analysis and is now drafting a manuscript for a peer-reviewed publication to share their findings.
- The team also completed a draft of the DECLARE questionnaire that will be given to family caregivers to assess their needs.
- A grant application was submitted to the National Institute on Aging (NIA) on June 12th. If successful, the grant will fund DECLARE development and pilot testing.
