To receive our monthly eNews as well as event notices and other updates, just enter your email address.
Take a moment to learn more about NYAM's activities and events.
PHILADELPHIA, PA, November 6, 2009 - What states can do to help reduce fragmentation of care and better fortify their base of qualified care coordinators is one of the many timely topics that researchers from The New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) addressed at the American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting in Philadelphia.
|
| Care Coordination and making New York a better place for older residents are two topics at this year's APHA meeting. |
Actions of the past decade by state, county, and local governments to fix our fragmented healthcare service delivery systems are the backdrop for a 9 a.m. 90-minute presentation on Wednesday, November 11, on "Developing a Model for Comprehensive Care Coordination: What States Can Learn from New York," which builds on multi-year work of Patricia Volland, MSW, MBA, director of the Social Work Leadership Institute and her team at NYAM. Founders of the active National Coalition on Care Coordination, the NYAM group is now proposing adoption of standards for the sorely needed professionals to answer the demand for care coordination.
Other APHA presentations, roundtables, and panel sessions involving NYAM social scientists will discuss findings from a breadth of research, including:
Additionally, in 25 other sessions throughout the APHA conference, NYAM researchers will describe innovative school health education programs, training initiatives, track progress in medication safety and pharmacy language services, and examine the social implications, health disparities, and relationship challenges of those involved with substance abuse.
"New York City serves as an excellent model for study of urban health challenges. It affords us many partners with whom to collaborate on developing solutions to the challenges faced by urban dwellers in cities throughout our country and around the globe," explains David Vlahov, PhD, senior vice president for research at NYAM and director of the Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies at the Academy. An epidemiologist and urban health expert, Dr. Vlahov will discuss "urban ecology" on an APHA panel "Megacities and Urban Health" at 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, November 10.
WATER FIRST - Reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a documentary film by Amy Hart, director of NYAM Public Health Productions, will be shown during two presentations at APHA on Monday, November 9 at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. This award-winning film, that conveys the central importance of clean water in achieving all of the MDGs, has been shown at numerous international conferences and festivals. The 10:30 a.m. program will feature Malawian native Charles Banda, founder of Freshwater Project Malawi and the central character of the film. Public Health Productions is an in-house video production unit of NYAM dedicated to producing films, videos and public services announcements focused on public health issues.
Care Coordination: Wide Variation among States
The latest work by the NYAM Social Work Leadership team examines what it takes to qualify as a care coordinator and what a blueprint for the implementation of a care coordination program would encompass.NYAM's work has identified the workforce needed to help consumers navigate the health and social care delivery systems, as well as what this model of care should look like.Commissioned by the New York State Department of Health and the New York State Office for the Aging, the NYAM staff researched national guidelines and select state programs, assessing standards and best practices. With an eye toward policy recommendations, current New York criteria were compared with national trends in qualifying care coordinators.
"Right now the scope and services covered by care coordination varies tremendously from state-to-state. This work has identified a model that New York could employ and who the workforce should be. The key is these professionals must understand both the medical and social support systems," says Jeannine Melly, MPH, of NYAM. "We became convinced that standards needed to be established in order to improve care and the value of care coordination."
Care Coordinators: Defining Professional Criteria
Nursing and social work should be the core competencies for care coordinators, according to the NYAM researchers. Detailed alternatives for education and background, with flexibility based on in-field experience, will be described at the APHA presentation (9 a.m., Wednesday, November 11). In all cases, ongoing supplementary training and education - and also possible certification - are recommended.
From the NYAM study, the profile of the care coordinator is someone skilled in assessing patient and situational factors, knowledgeable about interventions and adept at handling issues, skilled in communications and negotiating. The individual also needs to be a strong administrator and manager, able to help evaluate quality and cost of services. Other pre-requisites recommended:
Finally, researchers determined that a care coordinator's attitudes and values-respect for communications and the privacy and rights of others, as well as appreciation for client self-determination-were as critically important as more tangible skills.
A 68-page summary report of the landmark NYAM work is now being evaluated by the New York State Department of Health and the Office of Aging, funders of the work. It includes the voices of caregivers and older adults themselves, frail, multi-ethnic, and living both in New York City and Westchester County, who were interviewed individually or in focus groups, through the help of community-based organizations. The research is being extended through the New York City Public Housing Authority.
In other sessions at APHA, Jeannine Melly and her colleagues will share findings from other NYAM work in developing professionals for aging-related careers. In particular, they will report on their 12-year experience in training thousands of social workers to meet the urgent need for aging-competent professionals. This work continues under the NYAM Social Work Leadership Institute's Hartford Partnership Program for Aging Education, whose goal is to transform how geriatric education is taught in programs nationwide. (poster session Monday, November 9, 2:30 p.m., oral presentation Tuesday, November 10, 10:50 a.m.)
Neighborhoods Uniquely Vital to Aging Immigrants
NYAM leadership is partnering with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the NY City Council in Age-friendly NYC, a major initiative to make New York a better place for older residents. One population group that faces unique challenges is the estimated 44 percent of the city's adults who are foreign-born, many of them approaching or older than age 65. To insure that needs of older immigrants are included in New York City's ongoing efforts to plan for its aging population, NYAM researchers partnered with local immigrant and community organizations to conduct interviews with older New Yorkers from China, the Dominican Republic, the former Soviet Union, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. At APHA (Monday, November 9, poster session 2:30 p.m., oral presentation 3:15 p.m.), researchers will present preliminary findings, as well as describe the ongoing processes for using this knowledge to generate recommendations for city leaders, service providers, policy makers, and advocates to insure that New York's older immigrants have the support they need for healthy and active aging.
Their findings show that neighborhoods play an unusually large role as key places of aging for older immigrants, who spend increasingly more time there as they age. Older immigrants, often unable to live within the immigrant neighborhood (due in part to a lack of available or affordable housing), may travel back long distances on a daily basis to their immigrant-rich neighborhoods in order to continue to engage in the supportive and positive quality of life that they enjoy there.
"Our work showed that many older immigrants living in established immigrant neighborhoods felt respected and included-not subject to language or discriminatory barriers sometimes encountered elsewhere," comments Paula Gardner, PhD, from NYAM's Division of Health Policy. "Their social participation and engagement in life are strong, they have restaurants and markets close by that sell the foods they prefer, and they can access information sources and community resources for all their needs."
Preliminary recommendations from the NYAM researchers, whose work is funded by the Samuels Foundation, include these among many others:
"Many of the older immigrants with whom we spoke love New York City and are grateful for its benefits and services. We need to help retain their supportive immigrant neighborhoods as helpful 'places of aging'," says Ruth Finkelstein, ScD, vice president for health policy at NYAM. Dr. Finkelstein led the one-year assessment of aging in New York City that served as a backdrop for the Age-friendly NYC project.
Click here for a list of New York Academy of Medicine presentations at APHA.
NYAM has been advancing the health of people in cities since 1847. An independent organization, NYAM addresses the health challenges facing the world's urban populations through interdisciplinary approaches to innovative research, education, community engagement and policy leadership. Drawing on the expertise of diverse partners worldwide and more than 2,000 elected Fellows from across the professions, our current priorities are to create environments in cities that support healthy aging; to strengthen systems that prevent disease and promote the public's health; and to implement interventions that eliminate health disparities.
Posted on November 6, 2009
Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org
Reporters: to arrange interviews with NYAM medical and urban health experts, contact
Andrew J. Martin, Director of Communications
212-822-7285 / amartin@nyam.org
The 2012-2013 Duncan Clark Lecture - The Affordable Care Act: An Insider’s View
Featured Speaker: Sherry Glied, PhD, former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
November 19, 2012 - The NYAM Section on Health Care Delivery welcomes Sherry Glied, PhD, former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who will deliver the 2012-2013 Duncan Clark Lecture on "The Affordable Care Act: An Insider's View."
Learn more »
The New York Academy of Medicine with support from the New York State Heath Foundation released a new report, Federal Health Care Reform in New York State: A Population Health Perspective.
This report identifies opportunities that build on both the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) and New York’s ongoing efforts toward improving the health of its 19 million residents.
Read press release
Read report
