Message from the Chairperson of the Board of Directors and the President/CEO
Dear Friends and Supporters:
We want to express our gratitude to donors, partners, volunteers and staff who have given so generously. Your commitment to our mission and your investment of time, dollars and energy is greatly appreciated. With your support, we were able to provide needed home health and hospice care to 4,010 patients and their families this past year.
We are pleased to report that we continue to generate positive patient outcomes, patient satisfaction and financial results. For the fourth year in a row we have been recognized as a HomeCare Elite agency by the nationally recognized organization, Outcome Concepts Systems.
The population of our service area continues to grow and age, and our seniors are the highest users of healthcare. Visiting Nurse & Health Services of Connecticut’s average patient age is 75 and 76.83% are over the age of 65. Combine this with earlier hospital discharges resulting in sicker home care patients and the ongoing challenge of maintaining a high quality professional staff, and we have the perfect home health care delivery storm. Bouncing back and forth between hospital emergency rooms and home is not a pleasant experience. By fostering an ongoing partnership and working closely with leadership at Eastern Connecticut Health Network (ECHN) we have developed effective and efficient care models to manage high-risk patients across the continuum of care. We have improved patient outcomes and lowered re-hospitalization rates. And, by working collaboratively, we have generated significant savings for the entire healthcare system.
In 2010, we witnessed a major shift in America’s healthcare landscape, creating new challenges particularly for providers of healthcare at home . With challenge comes opportunity and our response has been to anticipate industry changes and associated challenges by developing programs to meet today’s healthcare demands. We are empowering patients to manage their own care at home under the guidance of our clinical experts. By reinstating and expanding our house call program, we are able to provide dependable, personalized medical care to those with chronic or acute illness. This program is designed to educate patients and caregivers to manage chronic conditions at home, and to call the nurse practitioner when their conditions are more acute.
The sustained investment in our Telehealth program continues to show tangible dividends. The remote device is a self-management tool that allows patients to monitor a number of vital signs and send the results electronically to VNHSC. Our expert nurse clinician monitoring the patient may find that he/she exhibits strong vital signs and few symptoms. This allows us to free up taxed staff so that a nurse who would have had to make a visit is available to admit a new patient.
Medical advances have made it possible for patients to receive extraordinary, curative care for life-limiting disease such as advanced cancer, and end-stage cardiac or respiratory disease. With our newly introduced palliative care program we are able to provide a supportive bridge between home healthcare and hospice. Like hospice, palliative care focuses on the patient and family as a whole, managing both physical and emotional symptoms.
We continue to develop thoughtful, strategic, collaborative programs focused on reducing the total cost of healthcare in our community. Our goal is to keep up with the growing needs of our existing market, while staying focused on long-term cost management to mitigate an ongoing reduction in reimbursement from Medicare and persistent underpayment from Medicaid and insurance payers.
In an increasingly challenging market, these steps will help us fulfill our mission to improve the lives of those we serve. We are aware that we cannot accomplish this without the community’s ongoing investment. We look forward to collaborating with you, our donors and partners, in 2012 and far beyond.
Sincerely,
Todd Rose Eric Kloter
President/CEO Chairperson