Awardees include home care and hospice caregivers, programs, patients, leaders and organizations in Rochester, the Capital Region, NYC, statewide, and nationally
ALBANY — At its Annual Conference on May 5, the Home Care Association of New York State (HCA) honored eight exceptional individuals and programs receiving HCA’s highest awards for excellence in home care and hospice.
A video of the ceremony is here, including remarks from all honorees.
“HCA is enormously proud to recognize each individual’s exemplary achievements, contributions, service, and inspiration to the field of home care and hospice,” said HCA President and CEO Al Cardillo.
Descriptions for all awardees are posted at https://hca-nys.org/2021awards. There you’ll also find links to individual profiles about each recipient, their accomplishments, and contributions to the field.
- The Ruth F. Wilson Award, HCA’s highest honor, is presented to Marki Flannery, recent past President and CEO of New York City-based Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY). This prestigious award recognizes an individual who has made home care services stronger and more visible and who has never wavered from his or her support of home care.
- HCA’s Caring Award recipients are Cynthia Stanley of Rochester-based HCR Home Care and Wanda Nycklass of Capital Region-based The Eddy SeniorCare. The Caring Award recognizes a staff person of an agency who has exhibited the compassion, skills and service that sets his or her contribution apart and/or whose actions on a particular day or over a period of time exemplify caring in home care.
- HCA’s Home Care Patient “Shining Light” Award is presented to Jillian Thibault of the Capital Region, an exceptional patient advocate who has battled several bouts of life-threatening sepsis. HCA’s new Patient “Shining Light” award is given to a patient who has confronted medical challenges or circumstances in a way that has achieved far-reaching inspirational and exemplary effects.
- Quality & Innovation Award recipients are: Rochester-based UR Medicine Home Care’s Critical Illness Recovery Program, a care transition model for COVID-19 care, and New York City-based Selfhelp Community Services’ Virtual Senior Center, which is delivering vital social services to seniors in a safe, secure, online format during the pandemic. The HCA Quality & Innovation award recognizes a home and community-based organization that has implemented a program or initiative with demonstrated outcomes in terms of client satisfaction, population health improvement, and cost reduction or avoidance.
- HCA’s Physician Home Care Champion Award recipient is Amy Ehrlich of New York City-based Montefiore Health System. The Physician Home Care Champion Award recognizes a physician in New York State who has demonstrated a strong and model commitment to home care patients and agency partners.
- HCA’s Advocacy Award recipients are Theresa Forster and Katie Wehri of the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC), for their advocacy on behalf of hospice services. The HCA Advocacy Award recognizes a provider agency or person who took risks to improve the home care or hospice industry, clients, and workers through their advocacy efforts.
HCA is a statewide health organization comprised of nearly 400 member providers and organizations delivering home and community-based care to several hundred thousand New Yorkers annually.
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