Personal Care
Latest Personal Care News
Find Out What’s Happening … News from Around VNSNY
June 2, 2021–Welcome to the latest edition of “News Briefs from Around VNSNY”— featuring quick updates on recent news and virtual events across the organization. If you have a news brief you’d like to be considered for an upcoming edition, please click here to submit your idea. VNSNY on Exhibit! Need an idea for a quick day trip? The beautiful Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk, Connecticut, is featuring an exhibit called “Health, Healing & Addiction in 19th Century America,” open to the public through October 17th. It covers the history of health care, including the extraordinary breakthroughs that led to the birth of modern medicine and public health. The exhibit also looks at rising addiction rates, which were pervasive in the 19th century through easy access to unregulated, over-the-counter “remedies.” Also on display are rare artifacts, instruments, costumes, and photographs from the Lockwood and Mathews families, as well as loans from private collections and
OKR (Objectives and Key Results) Easy Reference Guide
June 1, 2021–In addition to the OKR foundational training and the OKR writing workshop that many of you have taken (or will take soon), we thought it would be useful to provide you with an easy reference guide on how OKRs will move us forward as an organization. 1. OKRs are a journey that we’re all on together. An OKR objective isn’t something that can be accomplished in a day or two—your OKRs are quarterly goals, and we will continue to revisit them over time. 2. OKRs allow us to be more focused both as employees and as an organization. They allow us to focus on a smaller number of key priorities, and also help ensure we’re aligned with our Mission; our 3 Core Values—Empathy, Agility, and Integrity; and our 5 enterprise-wide OKR objectives: Make leaps in our consumer experience so that we consistently exceed expectations Become the region’s employer of choice
“Who’s Your Nursing Hero?” Check Out This Special Nurses Month Slideshow!
May 28, 2021–At one point or another, we have all encountered someone who has inspired us in our work. So as National Nurses Month draws to a close, Frontline asked our VNSNY nursing staff to tell us about their own sources of inspiration— the individuals who motivated them as children, as nursing students, and now as health care providers. Below are some of the many responses sent in by VNSNY’s nurses from across the organization. Thank you all for sharing with us, and for touching the lives of so many of our patients, members and clients. Happy Nurses Month! If you’d like to contribute a hero, it’s not too late. Click here and we’ll add it to the slideshow.
VNSNY Commemorates Memorial Day: Hear What Memorial Day Means to Our VNSNY Veterans
May 26, 2021–On Monday, May 31st, America celebrates Memorial Day and honors those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and our freedoms. In this special Memorial Day video, Frontline interviewed several VNSNY staff who are veterans and asked what Memorial Day means to them. To hear their moving tributes, click on the video below. In addition to this special Memorial Day video, we are also pleased to share the following poem by Robert Longley, which was adapted by Joe Vitti, Director of VNSNY’s Hospice Veterans Program.
Meet This Year’s Liota and Marren Award Winners!
May 25, 2021–As part of VNSNY’s ongoing Nurses Month celebration, the 2021 Liota and Marren Award winners have just been announced. Congratulations to the honorees, Collette Hendricks and Tameka McCabe, who were nominated by their VNSNY colleagues and selected by a committee of nursing leaders! Collette Hendricks, Psychiatric Nurse, Winner of the Marilyn Liota Award The Liota Award to Promote Cultural Diversity in Nursing Leadership, named after long-time VNSNY nurse and Queens Regional Vice President Marilyn Liota, is awarded each year to help an exemplary VNSNY nurse realize her or his leadership potential. The award provides a $1,500 scholarship for expenses related to nursing studies, continuing professional development, or communication/English language skills development. “I’ve always had compassion for people with mental illness.” Very early on during the COVID pandemic, when Zoom meetings were being held about pivoting to remote patient care during lockdown, Collette wouldn’t hear of it. “What’s going to happen
“30 Minutes with Dan” Celebrates National Nurses Month!
May 24, 2021–We’re pleased to bring you the May episode of “30 Minutes with Dan” — the video talk show hosted by VNSNY’s President and CEO Dan Savitt. This 30-minute monthly program is designed to be watched in one viewing or in multiple viewings — whichever works best for you. In this special Nurses Month episode that you won’t want to miss, Dan interviews VNSNY nurses Carmite Maurice, Amashika DaCosta, Erika Cingel, David Heron, Tiffany Blakney, and Fredlya Urena. From Central Park to Roberto Clemente Park in the Bronx, Dan travels the city to celebrate our nursing staff. To view, click here below! To watch more episodes of 30-minutes with Dan, click here.
Here They Are, the Most Recent Patient Letters and CHOICE Member Commendations!
May 21, 2021–Over 40 staff members are featured in the latest patient letters and CHOICE member commendations. Read them here. Click here to read the latest patient letters. Click here to read the most recent CHOICE member commendations. GREAT job, everyone! To read other Letters and Commendations from previous months, click here.
May 2021 Patient Letters
May 21, 2021–The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to prove the resilience and dedication of our entire VNSNY staff. The following are excerpts from a few of the many recent letters, phone calls, and emails that we’ve received from grateful patients and family members that reflect an outstanding consumer experience. “A Wonderful Job of Caring” Bronx—The daughter of a Bronx VNSNY Hospice patient called to give special thanks to licensed social worker Alisha Freeman and nurses Judith Spencer-Thomas and Selina Stewart-Williams, all of whom provided hospice care to her mother. She added that VNSNY Hospice had done “such a wonderful job of caring,” first for her father—who was also a hospice patient years earlier—and now her mother. “We Are So Grateful” “I am writing on behalf of my late father, and my mother, as the superb work of your staff sustained the both of them throughout his final year
Celebrating Nurses Month: Check Out These Long-Lost Photos of Early VNSNY Nurses!
May 17, 2021–As we continue our celebration of National Nurses Month, Frontline looks at this year’s theme, “Nurses Make a Difference,” through the lens of history. The fact is, VNSNY nurses have been making a difference in the lives of New Yorkers for 128 years. So what’s changed and what has stayed the same after all these years? A recent treasure trove of photos—featuring VNSNY nurses hard at work—gives us a hint! The National Institute of Health recently featured the online exhibition Outside/Inside:Immigration, Migration, and Health Care in the United States, which chronicles Lillian Wald’s efforts to support immigrants to New York City, starting with her creation of the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service on New York’s Lower East Side—then the world’s largest immigrant neighborhood—in 1893. Wald realized how visiting nurses could play a crucial role in reducing death rates, helping immigrants adjust to life in the United States, and advocating for the