Please contact the Champions listed below if you would like to have an initiative or issue reviewed at the next meeting. Thank you!

Congratulations to Robin Wilson, MSN, RN, CHPN, Palliative Care Services Manager for VNA Hospice & Palliative Care, who was elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the Hospice and Palliative Care Federation of Massachusetts at its annual meeting on May 11th.

 

Congratulations to Erica Friend, RN in the Worcester office, who diligently pursued her BSN amongst many other competing demands for her time, all while working full time. Erica accepted her diploma at graduation on May 21.

Social Workers and Community Resource Specialists provide valuable resources, support and a wide variety of services for patients and families. The behavioral health clinicians provide opportunities for patients to add to or adjust their current lifestyle leading to a higher quality of life. Thus, when viewing MSW, CRS and BH as "one team", the ability to collaborate, to build a stronger and more cohesive foundation and to fortify resources across VNA Care only strengthens our mission to help our patients, families and clinicians through many of life's challenges . The goal of this "one team" approach is to encourage MSW'S, CRS and BH clinicians to work together to best meet the needs of the patient. The wealth of resources and knowledge amongst this group is exceptional. By combining these experts onto one team, the referring clinician will have the comfort and reassurance that making one call to any member of this team will spark an immediate team focus to assist the patient and family through life's transitions.

As the MSW'S, CRS'S and BH clinicians all come under the behavioral health team as of July, 1, there will be questions during this transition period. But it is important to note that all MSW'S and CRS'S geography and office locations will not change during this transition. This group of clinicians has established solid and important relationships with the clinicians in their respected offices and this collaboration will continue. This is an exciting time for this group of experts and I am very fortunate to be working as part of this team. Advocacy, knowledge, professionalism and community are some of the many attributes of this team. I can only say how lucky we are to have such colleagues at the VNA!

If there are any questions or concerns regarding this transition or with the behavioral health team, please do not hesitate to contact Molly Lukason at 774-502-5545 or email Molly at molly_lukason@vnacare.org.

 

The new MyBlue Member App is an easy-to-use tool that gives you a secure and convenient way to manage your health plan and care from your smartphone.

 

With a couple of clicks, you can get access to:

• Administrative, Secretarial, and Clerical
• Clinical Management
• Home Health Aide
• Hospice
• Information Services and Technical
• Nursing
• Professional and Non-Clinical Management
• Rehabilitation

To learn more about career opportunities listed in the links above, contact Debbie Brown, Human Resources Manager at debbie_brown@vnacare.org.

• Any Office
• Charlestown
• Danvers
• Gloucester
• Leominster
• New Horizons
• Needham
• Southborough
• Weymouth
• Woburn
• Worcester
• de Rham Hospice Home
• Monahan Hospice Home
• Tippett Hospice Home
• Children's Garden

To learn more about career opportunities, contact a human resources representative:

• Cheryl Milas at cheryl_milas@vnacare.org or 888-663-3688, ext. 6951
• Bev Riley at beverly_riley@vnacare.org or 888-663-3688, ext. 4717
• Ann Bohac at ann_bohac@vnacare.org or 888-663-3688, ext. 6964

 

To suggest an area of focus to the Employee Advisory Team (EAT), please email your suggestion to EATSuggestionbox@vnacare.org. Suggestions can include ideas to improve current processes and procedures, remove redundancies, or even to provide feedback on something you think is/is not working.

 

Please feel free to discuss any issues that you would like brought to EAT with the following members of the committee:

Liz Bourne Ray Brackett Kim Dio Kelly Frew

Mary Helen Mahoney Susan Marlin Procter Mary McCarthy Ilona O'Connor

Mary Ann O'Connor Mae Powers David Rose Danny Yang

EAT is also on the lookout for new members. If you're interested in participating, or for more information on what EAT is all about, please reach out to any of the members listed above. Meetings are held monthly in the Charlestown office.

 

The Joint Commission standard requires us to identify risks associated with home oxygen therapy.

Clinicians are responsible to assess the home for fire safety risks on all patients as part of our environmental assessment. This includes assessing for working smoke detectors and available exits from the home. When a patient is on oxygen therapy we expand this assessment to include proper storage and use of oxygen equipment. It is necessary to identify any person in the home who is smoking or if there are smoking materials in the home.