Situation Report | September 27, 2021
The Mother Cabrini Health Foundation has continued HCA’s Home Care and Hospice Clinician Training for COVID-19 Testing through June 30, 2022, enabling home care and hospice providers to continue to register their clinicians for this fully funded HCA program.
In this program, HCA, the Iroquois Healthcare Association (IHA) and the Mohawk Valley Health System (MVHS) partner to offer virtual statewide training for home care and hospice clinicians to conduct in-home specimen collection for COVID-19 testing, facilitating the testing and care of the most vulnerable populations safely in their homes. The State Department of Health also announced the extension through the Health Commerce System (HCS).
In the wake of the initial 2020 COVID-19 surge, HCA applied for and received a Cabrini grant to develop and deliver this online training for home health and hospice nurses, licensed practical nurses and other approved clinicians.
To date, HCA along with IHA and MVHS have trained over 2,000 clinicians across 150 organizations.
The program provides recorded training modules featuring MVHS educators, a pre- and post-course test of the trainees and certificate of successful completion following the course.
Providers interested in registering their clinicians can visit the HCA site. The site includes the steps to initiate the registration process. Funds covering the training during the extension period are available on a first come, first serve basis; however, once registered, clinicians have on-demand flexibility for when they might take the module.
Following registration, the training module is accessed through IHA’s learning management platform, HealthStream, which is user friendly and can be accessed on many devices including laptops, tablets and mobile devices.
HCA thanks the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation for extending HCA’s capacity for this fully-funded training for the state’s home care and hospice clinicians. Given the continued volatility of COVID-19, and what will surely be a high-level state focus to reexamine, revise and newly secure the public health infrastructure, this program offers important support, opportunities and visibility for home care and hospice as core public health partners.