Quality Home Care Coming to Brooklyn

Brooklyn residents who need quality home-based services will soon be able to benefit from the expert, reliable and compassionate care provided by the HHC Health and Home Care team (H&HC).

In August, the State of New York Public Health and Health Planning Council selected the HHC home care agency to be certified to serve the borough of Brooklyn and expand its services currently available to residents in the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens.

In order to receive certification by the state, the interested organizations had to demonstrate how they could improve access to home health services, advance the state’s Medicaid Redesign Team initiatives to reduce costs while maintaining quality, adopt a comprehensive quality assurance plan, enhance care coordination, improve patient choice and improve quality outcomes.

More than 80 organizations submitted applications to the state and 14 proposals moved forward in the selection process. But according to the review panel chair, the Health and Home Care group application was the only one worthy of an A+ and was the only organization to receive full approval to operate in Brooklyn.

“As part of HHC’s integrated healthcare delivery network, we were well positioned to meet the high standards set by the state to advance the efficiencies and coordination of care that are key to Medicaid redesign,” said Ann Frisch, Executive Director of Health and Home Care. “We are excited to be able to serve patients in Brooklyn and work closely with the HHC Brooklyn-based hospitals to help address the serious health needs and disparities that exist, especially among the low-income multicultural population in the borough.”

H&HC is the certified home care agency of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation that provides expert home-based nursing services, as well as physical, occupational, speech therapy, and other services that may be prescribed by the patient’s plan of care.

H&HC will soon have hospital-based intake nurses stationed in the three HHC acute care hospitals in Brooklyn -- Coney Island, Kings County, and Woodhull -- and will begin to work with medical staff at those facilities to coordinate the patient care during the transition from hospital to home-based care setting. The home health agency expects to be fully operational to serve Brooklyn by winter or early spring of 2013.

Click here to learn more about HHC Health & Home Care.

October 2012