Contacts: Andrea Colby, e3communications, 518.431.1541

SYRACUSE, NY — April 2010 — The Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York (CHFWCNY) and various health care organizations throughout the region today participated in a conference – Promising Practices in the Care of Elders: Innovative Ideas Grown in CNY designed to share best practices in workforce improvement in health care settings and home-based care, as well as ensuring that care is both high quality and  appropriate.

“This conference highlights successes and lessons learned from six different projects that were developed and implemented in central New York,” said Ann F. Monroe, president of the Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York.  “We believe this opportunity to learn about from and share ideas about these projects is important to encourage others to work towards better care for frail elders in our communities.”

The conference provided the following health care organizations the opportunity to share information about programs and initiatives they developed:

·   Crouse Hospital and Aurora of Central New York – presented results from an initiative to enhance care for elderly patients who come to the hospital with hearing and vision impairments.  It was determined that the more education provided for staff throughout the hospital the more they gained important knowledge and confidence to address the sensory needs of the patients when they arrive at the hospital as well as the resources to develop a program to address these impairments.

·   Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging, Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York and Loretto – through the Project Home program approaches were designed to help nursing home patients return to the community.  Teams of health care professionals were created as part of a comprehensive planning system to determine a plan to move those out of a nursing home in a more appropriate community setting.  The teams assisted clients for months using their in-depth knowledge of community resources and relatively small caseloads to troubleshoot and advocate for patients.  The Project Home evaluation showed that  clients who transitioned to the community spent less money on home care and services than the cost of nursing home residency.

·   Loretto Health and Rehabilitation and Health Leadership Fellows – one of the challenges of the heath care system is a lack for frontline workers, especially those who can provide compassionate care.  As such, an interview tool was created and implemented in a pilot program at various health care facilities to assist human resource officials in identifying high and low performers.  Among the goals of the interview tool kit and the hiring process is to identify workers who have the potential to have a high level of satisfaction in the workplace.

·   Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) and Loretto CNY – this initiative focused on assessing the impact of mentoring to reduce turn over among home care workers and as such improve care for the elderly.  A training program and curriculum was developed for home health aides, including the creation of a career ladder.  This has resulted in a higher level of workplace satisfaction for these aides through enhanced communications with their supervisors and peers.

·   Tompkins County Office for the Aging – this initiative was created to identify resources to improve the quality of care through community collaboration.  One component was to develop a plan to improve and streamline the training and certification of direct care workers and secondly to develop a plan to incorporate best practices for retention of these workers.  Through a collaborative process with over 35 organizations regularly meetings were conducted to fulfill both components, including the development and mass distribution of a recruitment booklet – “Careers in Caring”.

·   Genesee Community College Nursing Program and the Genesee County Long Term Care Task Force Office – this initiative is focusing on creating a more elder-friendly healthcare workforce.  To accomplish this, a new curriculum was devised in coordination with the New York State Education Department to better prepare nursing students to care for an aging population.  The program provided students with a better understanding of the various community resources that are available to the elderly in order to provide a continuum of care in the community.

About The Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York:

The Community Health Foundation of Western and Central New York is committed to improving health and health care by collaborating with community partners and focusing on frail elders, young children in communities of poverty, and community health capacity. The Foundation is based in Buffalo with an office and staff in Syracuse. For more information please visit www.chfwcny.org.