United Hospital Fund Provide $575,000 for Grants to Improve Health Services in New York City

Release Date: 07.23.2010
Contact: rdeluna@uhfnyc.org
Contact Phone: 212 494 0733

The United Hospital Fund today announced ten grants totaling $575,000 to improve health care services in New York City.  These strategic grants are a part of the approximately $2 million that the Fund distributes annually to support the development of model projects, sponsor research to analyze systemic problems, and foster innovative solutions.  Beneficiaries of the Fund’s grants include not-for-profit and public hospitals, nursing homes, and health care, academic, and public interest organizations.

Among the initiatives funded through these grants are a campaign to promote immigrants’ access to health insurance and explain the impact of health reform on available options; a program to determine how volunteers can be used to assist family caregivers in Chinatown; the implementation of a new scorecard that assesses health system performance at a community level within New York State; the creation of a satisfaction improvement process to improve nursing home quality of life; an extensive outreach effort to recruit and better serve HIV-positive patients with complex issues; and a wide range of initiatives promoting and supporting volunteer efforts at metropolitan New York hospitals.

“The United Hospital Fund has a keen interest in helping health care organizations be responsive to the needs of the communities they serve,” said James R. Tallon, Jr., president of the United Hospital Fund.  “Outreach programs, scorecards, satisfaction surveys—these are all innovative ways to involve people in their own care.  They’re models for more targeted and efficient delivery of services that hopefully can be replicated elsewhere.”

Details on the grants are included below.

Expanding Health Insurance Coverage

The New York Immigration Coalition ($75,000)
The New York Immigration Coalition will create an outreach and education campaign to promote immigrants’ access to health insurance and clearly explain the impact health reform will have on the options available to them.  The project will include materials development, training and technical assistance, and communication targeted at community-based and advocacy organizations, health care providers, public insurance enrollers, elected officials, and community members.  The project aims to reinforce immigrants’ rights to health care and health coverage after a health reform debate that has resulted in widespread confusion among immigrant communities.

Improving Quality of Care

Beth Israel Medical Center ($70,000)
Beth Israel Medical Center will develop and evaluate its Chinese Caregiver Volunteer Support Program to improve the quality of life of underserved, immigrant Chinese caregivers living in the Chinatown community.  Beth Israel will partner with Hamilton-Madison House, the Lower East Side settlement house, which will assist in recruiting family caregivers and volunteers.  Project staff will develop a volunteer training curriculum that will incorporate the Fund’s Next Step in Care materials, which are available in Chinese.  With this grant, Beth Israel hopes to determine the feasibility of this innovative model for meeting the needs of underserved and culturally isolated caregivers.

IPRO ($100,000)
Under a grant awarded by the Fund last year, IPRO worked with a technical advisory group to propose specifications for a New York State community-level scorecard.  This project will take the next step and implement the scorecard to provide a comprehensive assessment of health system performance at a community level within New York State.  The scorecard will include 30 to 40 measures of performance across the domains of quality, costs, potentially preventable hospitalizations, health outcomes, and equity.  Performance will be measured at the county and regional levels—likely 14 to 16 regions in New York State, consisting of one or more counties per region.

Jewish Home Lifecare ($65,000)
Jewish Home Lifecare will work to improve culture change by creating, implementing, and evaluating a collaborative process utilizing elder and family satisfaction data generated from “My Inner View,” a national performance improvement survey instrument.  One nursing home “community” (formerly called a “unit”) will be chosen to participate from each of Jewish Home Lifecare’s three nursing homes.  Communities will employ teams, including staff, residents, and family members, to make decisions in priority areas and specific ways to improve satisfaction.  Teams will be trained in the model for improvement and use rapid cycle quality improvement to test and evaluate changes.

Redesigning Health Care Services

Amida Care ($75,000)
Amida Care will engage in an extensive outreach effort to recruit Medicaid-eligible, HIV-positive New Yorkers currently not receiving care or treatment.  These new clients will be provided with all of the benefits of their service model, including Medicaid coverage, referral to one of their core primary care providers, care coordination, and peer support.  This outreach effort is in support of a three-year project—undertaken by Amida Care, the New York City AIDS Fund, and the Primary Care Development Corporation, with major funding from the National AIDS Fund—to improve access and retool primary care services to better meet the needs of HIV-positive individuals who have difficulty staying in treatment.

Promoting Health Care Voluntarism

Bellevue Hospital Center ($40,000)
Bellevue will develop a comprehensive initiative to support healthy eating and active lifestyle messages given to Latino families during pediatric appointments.  Volunteers will be trained to teach simple principles of nutrition and practical ways to improve health and prevent obesity.

Long Island Jewish Medical Center ($30,000)
Long Island Jewish Medical Center will expand its Hospital Elder Life Program, in which volunteers provide targeted interventions to address geriatric issues known to contribute to cognitive, functional, and physical decline during hospitalization.

Montefiore Medical Center ($40,000)
This Fund grant will support the launch of a Caregiver Support Program that will recruit and train volunteers to serve as caregiver coaches.  Volunteers will provide emotional support and practical assistance to family caregivers of seriously ill hospitalized patients, teach them about hospital services, and direct them to community resources.

The Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens ($40,000)
Growing out of a successful program in Mount Sinai’s emergency department, a new program will provide support, education, and guidance to patients and their caregivers in the inpatient medical and geriatric units.  Volunteers will provide help with understanding discharge plans, post-discharge referrals, and available resources. The project will particularly focus on families with limited English proficiency.

Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center ($40,000)
This grant aims to increase psychiatric patients’ access to primary care services through the use of volunteer Patient Navigators, who will be an integral part of the care team at a new primary care clinic co-located with the psychiatric clinic.  Navigators will assist patients in scheduling appointments, make reminders and follow-up calls, and provide escort where needed.

About the United Hospital Fund: The United Hospital Fund is a health services research and philanthropic organization whose mission is to shape positive change in health care for the people of New York.

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