Attributes of Teamwork:

By Debbie Brown, Human Resources Manager & Service Excellence Champion and Temoy Williams, Public Relations & Marketing Specialist

 

The Human Resources department supports our over 1,300 employees. As a result, we are committed to cross training our entire team across various vital HR functions, decreasing our response time and boosting our efficiency.

As a department, we believe that no one task is specific to any team member. We must band together in an effort to complete our tasks quickly and accurately to meet the needs our wider team - our organization as a whole.

By Jeanne Callahan Lydon, Senior Vice President, Clinical Services, Quality & Risk Management

 

In light of the departure of Annemarie Martin and Jen Casper's transition to her new role as Director of Business Operations, we will be transitioning to a new role within Clinical Services. I am delighted to announce that Katie Callahan has agreed to assume a Lead Manager role within the VNA Management structure. Katie will assume oversight of the Boston nursing team structure and daily operations as well as the IV and Evening programs in particular. We are very grateful to Katie for her assistance in these areas and look forward to working with her in this role. We believe her long tenure in the agency will provide the stability and direction needed at this time to execute our plans to be a key pre-acute and post-acute solution to the health care system. We will be recruiting to replace her position as Manager of the MSW team. (see job posting here)

 

Additionally, with the departure of Kathy Souleotis on the SEN team, we are pleased to announce that Elaine Buckley will be assuming oversight of adult team supervision in addition to her current responsibilities. We are very happy to have her experience in management and home care to help guide our staff and respond to the needs of the patients and community.

 

We look forward to working with Katie and Elaine and appreciate their commitment to the agency and our patients.

 

Snow shovels are new this year and can be obtained by contacting the appointee in your office below.

By Beverly Salate, Wellness Manager

 

The deadline has passed for all employees to either receive the flu immunization or submit an exemption for the 2015/2016 flu season. The agency did not quite reach our goal of 100% compliance but we came very close. Last year we were at approximately 72% compliance. This year we are at 96.7%!!!!!!!

 

Out of 1,310 employees, only 43 have not been in compliance. (Human Resources will be contacting the mangers of those not in compliance to follow up, as this is a condition of employment.) To the 1,267 employees who did receive the vaccine, I commend you!! 

Click the FULL ARTICLE button for more information.

For a complete description of the changes, including screenshots, please click the FULL ARTICLE button below.

To ensure that everything will work smoothly, please follow these steps before performing the update scheduled for the evening of 12/28 into the morning of 12/29 (if these steps are not performed it is possible the update may fail):

Please contact your local IT resource if you have and questions.

By Adele Pike, Director of Education

 

VNACN nurses will not be required to complete the CoaguChek competency as part of their annual competency requirements. It has been replaced by a much shorter competency on performing a finger stick.

 

You will see the Fingerstick Competency on your Dashboard, but no longer see CoaguChek on the list of modules do.

 

By Susan Stiller, QI Specialist & Infection Control Officer and Christine Gill, Patient Care Manager

 

As part of CMS's value based purchasing program for home health, the tracking of the herpes zoster (shingles) vaccine will begin 1/1/16. Most of the measures that the agency will be reporting to CMS are from the OASIS data set or from patient satisfaction surveys. One of the new measures, herpes zoster vaccine for home health patients, will need to be collected. As it is not part of the OASIS, the agency is presently identifying where the documentation needs to be put in the electronic medical record and how to retrieve it so it can be sent to CMS. This will be collected only on patients aged 60 or older. More information will be forthcoming.

Click FULL ARTICLE for further information on Shingles and Herpes Zoster.

 

Our sincere appreciation to the many staff members who made a donation to either the Employee Giving Campaign or United Way of North Shore Campaign. All donors were entered into a drawing. Winners are:

By Ray Brackett, Desktop & Infrastructure Specialist

 

Very soon, the MIS Department will be expanding its Help Desk ticketing system (called SysAid) which will allow anyone in the organization to submit their own Help Desk requests from their computer. This will be used for non-urgent problems and requests (such as "my printer is not working" or "please install software on my computer").

 

Submitted requests will be monitored by the MIS Dept, placed in queue, and addressed timely. In the upcoming weeks, you may see a new icon on your desktop that reads 'MIS Help Desk'. It will be there so as to be ready for implementation when the system is live. Until then please leave it there and you will be instructed in its use at a later date.

 

We look forward to implementing this system as a way to streamline Help Desk requests throughout the organization, and serve the user community in an efficient manner.

For Encore issues including communications, Encore laptops, WebVPN and general technology

• Through Friday, January 1, 11:59 PM - John Severin: (781) 775-7982
• Beginning Saturday, January 2, 12:00 AM -  Gary Weller (774) 239-6064

For McKesson issues including iPads and laptops and general technology (support is provided weekdays 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM, weekends and holidays 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM)

• Through Tuesday, December 29, 10:00 PM - Jose' Parra (617) 913-3003
• Beginning Wednesday, December 30, 6:00 PM - Cathy Langone (617) 913-3003