The theme for this year's Annual Report, "Celebrating 90 Years Of Service," is a reflection of our Agency's tradition of continuously providing service to the community. Since 1913, Visiting Nurse & Health Services of Connecticut has been providing essential home health and hospice care to patients and families in eastern and north central Connecticut.

For over nine decades VNHSC's dedicated and committed leadership and staff have been working locally and regionally to improve the overall health of the community. As America continues to age and require access to quality health care, one can plainly see that the best years of VNHSC are yet to come.

Despite years of government cutbacks and agency closures, VNHSC has survived, we have redoubled our efforts and determination to continue providing the highest possible health care services in the dignity and comfort of each patient's home. This has meant not only providing competent and compassionate care, but also aligning business, clinical and technological strategies to maintain profitability while improving clinical quality.

Technology enables VNHSC to work efficiently and apply limited resources to those patients at greatest risk. Computerization of the clinical-care process is in the final stages of implementation. We are currently evaluating tele-health products, we believe the right technology will increase productivity and improve patient outcomes and satisfaction. Tele-health will enable our team of home care nurses to work closely with the patient's physician and enable the nurse to direct the patient to the physician well before there is a need for emergency care. Tele-health will complete the loop in the continuum of health care from the physician's office, the hospital and to the home.

The Agency's staff and leadership hold themselves up to the highest level of standard. Along with providing care and support for patients and families the Agency embraces the concept of benchmarking, comparing our performance with those of national standards. In the future health care consumers will use this information to select the provider of choice.

With the coming of retirement age of America's baby boomers and the promise of emerging technologies I have no doubt that home health and hospice providers will be at the forefront of health care. It is with no small amount of pride that we celebrate the 90th anniversary of VNHSC and the great promise of the future of home care and hospice.

Joy Dorin
Chairperson, Board of Directors

Patricia Piela
President/CEO