Addressing Health Disparities Through Home Care

HCA E&R in partnership with the Iroquois Healthcare Association (IHA) are delivering web-based Cultural Competency Training for all levels of staff. This training is focused on addressing societal issues that will engage employees by helping them understand, recognize, and advocate for a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture.

This complimentary training is open to all home care personnel in New York State.

New! Nurses can obtain Continuing Nursing Education Credits (CNE) through the American Nurses Credentialing Center for the following courses.

Sessions include:

• Communication and Culture (1.25 CNE)
• Cultural Awareness In Healthcare (1 CNE)
• Cultural Diversity: Guidelines for an Inclusive Workplace (1 CNE)
• Diversity and Individual Differences (1 CNE)
• Leadership: Diversity and Cultural Intelligence (1 CNE)
• Managing Bias and Improving Cultural Competence (1 CNE)
• Management: Workforce Diversity (0.75 CNE)
• Management: Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity in Long Term Care (1 CNE)
• Overview of HIV (1.5 CNE)

Participate

The course is hosted by the IHA Healthstream learning platform. First, complete the “Letter of Participation” form below to indicate your organization’s interest in participation. From there, we will follow up with instructions for logging into Healthstream with individualized user accounts.

This platform gives you the ability to:

• Take 44 courses.
• Print a certificate of completion for each course.
• Use any device to access the training (laptop, tablet, etc.)

HCA E&R is implementing an initiative that brings together the Albany College of Pharmacy Collaboratory and home health agencies in the capital region. The Collaboratory is a community-based, charitable organization for poor, elderly, and underserved individuals in Albany’s South End. The health needs of those served by the Collaboratory align closely with the mission of home health. The collaborative pilot will facilitate direct public health services and interventions to address disparities in an underserved, high-risk community

HCA Launches Statewide Health Literacy Initiative for Patients

The initiative will pilot test the efficacy of providing virtual health literacy education and information to home care and hospice care recipients through the Virtual Senior Center (VSC), in partnership with HCA member Selfhelp Community Services, operator of the VSC. All home care, hospice, MLTC, FI/CDPAP and Waiver Program recipients encouraged to participate.

Health literacy has been defined as “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.” (Ratzan and Parker, 2000)

Health literacy is key to positive patient experience, outcomes, effective self-care, and partnership with care professionals. It is also critical in breaking through health disparities.

With state and national policy and program prioritization on better addressing health disparities, including the state’s current work to secure a multi-billion dollar federal investment in NY to address disparities, your participation in this type of initiative will help equip you and your organization for advancement, and most importantly, will support your efforts to promote quality care and patient quality of experience, quality of life, independence and dignity.

Watch this compelling example of a VSC participant: 

How to Enroll

This service will be provided without charge.

The VSC will make accessible a menu of informational and educational material to support health literacy for recipients that can be directly accessed by the individual once they are enrolled. Individuals you identify, and who wish to enroll, will just need your help to be signed into the VSC.

Once enrolled, the individual (solo or with the assistance of their caregiver or family members) can access the elements of health literacy on the VSC. There is no limit to access; recipients can sign-in according to a schedule that works best for them.

There are no requirements other than to enroll, and to agree to provide feedback on the experience and benefit. Participating providers and organizations will be similarly asked to provide feedback and recommendations that HCA and the Mother Cabrini Foundation can use to evaluate and consider long-term support for the program.

At this link, you can enroll your client immediately by creating an account for them. The VSC team will keep HCA apprised (de-identified, no PHI) of the number of enrollees by organization and region.

HCA E&R in conjunction with our project partner, IPRO, led a statewide assessment to explore disparities and interventions that assist with impacting care in HCBS. Read the full report on identified health disparities, corresponding gaps and barriers, and potential interventions here.

As a result of the assessment, respondents requested more information in in various areas. The following webinars were made available to fill the gaps identified from the assessment. The recordings are available on HCA’s LMS via the links below. 

Assessing and Addressing Social Determinants of Health by Adopting and Utilizing PREPARE

This presentation provides an overview of the PRAPARE (Protocol for Responding to & Assessing Patients’ Assets, Risks & Experience) screening tool, implementation and action toolkit, available resources, and reviews PRAPARE codes including ICD- 10 CMS Z codes and others. Handouts are available here.

Collaborating and Knowing Your Community Partners and Resources

This presentation shares insights on successful partnerships, tips for navigating the challenges of creating new relationships, and reviews a Socioeconomic Risk Assessment tool, and a Community Resource Tool which includes county-level resources. Access the tool here.

Best Practices for Collecting and Utilizing Patient Sociodemographic Data

This presentation reviews best practices for collecting and utilizing patient sociodemographic data used to identify and address disparities to ensure equitable care, and the impact of health-related social needs on health outcomes.

Integrating the Accountable Health Communities Model to Assess and Address Social Determinants of Health in Home Care

This presentation will provide an overview of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Accountable Health Communities Model (AHC) and Health-Related Social Needs (HRSN) Screening Tool. This presentation will also highlight AHC’s best practices and outcomes though case studies, EHR integration and ICD-10 CMS Z codes. Access the handouts here.

HCA, in partnership with the New York State Office of Mental Health and the Finger Lakes Geriatric Center of the University of Rochester, has special training available for staff of home care agencies, hospice, MLTC and community mental health provider staff to advance the skills and knowledge of staff and the agencies’ organizational practices and strategies for the care and support of patients who have mental health interdisciplinary needs.

Recordings are now available for this specially-developed curriculum to enhance your practice knowledge and skills in the care of individuals with co-occurring physical and mental/behavioral needs; these are the individuals with the most complex, intensive and interdisciplinary needs; those who represent the greatest challenges in care; and those who far too often suffer the cracks of the fragmented physical-and-mental/behavioral health system.

Introduction to Mental Health and Accessing Services: November 30, 2022 Recording Available

• The 3 D’s: Dementia, Delirium & Depression Tom Caprio (40 min)
• Accessing Mental Health Services for Additional Support – Dr. Flavio Casay (40 min)

Understanding Health and Mental Health: December 14, 2022 Recording Available

• Overview of Serious Mental Illness (SMI) – Gregory Sherman, MD
• Psychotropic Medications – Jane Sundberg, PharmD

Improving Communication and Addressing Crisis): January 18, 2023 Recording Available

• Communication Approaches for Clients with SMI – Carol Podgorski, PhD, MPH, MS
• Crisis Intervention – EJ Santos, MD, MPH

HCA E&R in partnership with the Finger Lakes Geriatric Education Center held an educational webinar on December 15^th to provide an overview of Dementia, Delirium, and Depression, and introduced a new point-of-care tool to help you better understand the differences between the 3 D’s. For access to the tool, please complete the form below and HCA E&R will send you the tool for use. We will follow up in a few weeks and ask that you fill out a brief survey on your experiences with the tool.

HCA E&R in partnership with Nascentia Health and five pilot agencies is conducting a point-of-care translation services for English language-challenged and non-English speaking individuals in home care. In addition to supporting the care of these individuals, the program will inform potential statewide replication goals.

Through this initiative, HCA and Nascentia Health have translated a number of resources in multiple languages prevalent in NYS. Among the resources are tools for providers and patients including sepsis zone tools, a general health booklet, and a tool differentiating between dementia, delirium, and depression. View the documents in HCA’s upcoming resource library. 

HCA has engaged Duke University’s “Population Care Coordinator Program” to train and certify clinicians in population care coordination focused at the community, organizational and patient level. This initiative is currently piloted in 10 agencies across NYS serving as the basis for evaluation and potential expansion for broader availability. 

Twenty two clinicians across NYS were engaged and certified upon completion of this training program.

Our latest project is the Rural Primary Care Collaborative. It is a rural primary care program, under an FQHC-Home Health Agency collaborative, providing primary care access and intervention for individuals who do not, or have difficulty, accessing primary care in a clinic or other office-based environment.