CNY Cares

09/28/2020

Today we are featuring the impressive work of Kate Weidman, PMP.

Kate came to CNY Cares in November of 2015 as a Project Manger and ultimately transitioned into the Manager, Project Management Office. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Business & Organizational Management with an emphasis on Social Responsibility and completed her Master’s Degree in Organizational Management from Russell Sage College. Her life adventures brought her to Syracuse where she began her career at a non-profit organization that provided services to individuals including at-risk youth, individuals with developmental disabilities, and unaccompanied minors. During this time, Kate gained valuable experience writing grants, implementing projects and honing her project management skills.

During her time at CNY Cares, she led several major projects including DSRIP Care Management, ED Care Triage and the Innovation Fund. In Kate’s own words, “My experience at CNY Cares has been wonderful. During this time, I’ve built relationships with amazing community organizations and worked alongside remarkable and smart coworkers. Thank you to everyone who has made this crazy DRSIP journey with me-it was an amazing 5 years.”

Read more about her accomplishments here: https://cnycares.org/team-spotlight/

09/25/2020

We are celebrating the exceptional work of Ebony Pengel.

Ebony joined the CNY Cares team in 2018 as Training Manager, contributing her wealth of knowledge and experience in adult learning, education and development, and over a decade of Medicare experience to the team. Ebony’s impressive credentials include: Certified Practice Facilitator from University of Buffalo, Certified Professional Consultant and Certified Master Trainer from Langevin Learning Services, Comp Tia CTT+ - CompTIA, Synchronous Learning Expert from Insync, and Licensed Zumba Instructor.

Her initial priority was to launch the training initiatives for the IBM Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) system for our partners. In addition to facilitating trainings, Ebony was instrumental in several of our learning collaboratives and town halls where she created activities, and led interactive group discussion sessions. Most recently, Ebony played a major role with the launch of our CNY Cares Referral Network.

Ebony has transformed the CNY Cares team with her positive attitude and dedication to education and team building. Her enthusiasm has led to her success working within the organization and with partners.

Read more about her accomplishments here: https://cnycares.org/team-spotlight/

09/24/2020

We are celebrating the great work of Tammy Van Epps!

Tammy joined the CNY Cares team in February 2016 as Project Manager, bringing 18 years of experience developing prevention initiatives and programming to serve crime victim survivors, with specialized expertise on domestic and sexual violence. Tammy completed her degree of Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Utica College of Syracuse University, received her Licensed Master of Social Work degree from Syracuse University and achieved Certified Practice Facilitator from University of Buffalo. Previously, Tammy was Board President of the NYS Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Chair of the Central New York Crime Victims Providers Coalition.

During her tenure at CNY Cares, Tammy focused on several major projects, working with health systems across the community to improve outcomes for some of our most vulnerable populations. Tammy’s desire to help others, along with her dedicated work ethic led to her success within the organization, making positive impacts with all who had the opportunity to work with her.

Read more about Tammy's contributions here:https://cnycares.org/team-spotlight/

08/17/2020

We are thrilled to showcase the extensive work of Karen Joncas.

Karen joined the CNY Cares team in January of 2016 as Project Manager, bringing a wealth of knowledge and expertise from the healthcare industry to the organization. She is a NCQA PCMH Certified Content Expert from the National Committee for Quality Assurance. She trained in Rapid Cycle Continuous Improvement methodology through the Medicaid Accelerated eXchange (MAX and MAXny) program. In addition to Patient-Centered Medical Home and Cardiovascular Disease Management, her knowledge and experience within the healthcare sector spans: Value-based payment models and standardized performance quality measures (HEDIS and AHRQ), Electronic Medical records, Behavioral Health Integration, Palliative care, and Transitional and Chronic Care Management including social determinants of Health.

During her time here, Karen worked on 3 major projects that resulted in improvements in whole person, team-based patient-centered care. Her most meaningful work came from working directly with Partners’ teams who worked to improve patient experiences and health, hearing their patient stories and their passion and satisfaction in affecting the change.

Read more about Karen's accomplishents here:

https://cnycares.org/team-spotlight/ are thrilled to showcase the extensive work of Karen Joncas.

08/11/2020

CNY Cares is excited to offer a Recap Session for Unite Us end-users who have already completed the initial training!

Who: Trained Unite Us Platform End-Users
What: Refresh your skills using the platform
Where: Virtual Link register here https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XFDBRN5
When: On August 19th from 10 – 12:30
Why: We want you to feel confident using the Unite Us platform to actively send and receive referrals

07/23/2020

Don't forget! There are only three full business days left to submit your PA and VBP Deliverables during our ‘Last Chance’ opportunity.

All Deliverables are due by 5pm on July 28th.

We are hosting Virtual Office Hours tomorrow from 10-11am, where CNYCC staff will be available to assist you with any questions or concerns. You can register for the Office Hours here:

07/21/2020

We are thrilled to thank and recognize our Chief Medical Officer, Joseph Maldonado for his many contributions to the organization.

Dr. Maldonado joined the CNY Cares team in November 2017. During his tenure, he oversaw the development, revision, implementation and monitoring of clinical standards of care for 11 CNYCC DSRIP Projects. He worked diligently on the strategy, implementation and monitoring to ensure Partners met both DSRIP and CNYCC clinical goals.

He developed the Primary Care Plan Revision and Strategy from Mid-point through end of the program. Garnering support from many sectors of the healthcare industry, Dr. Maldonado actively engaged with both hospital and community physicians and clinicians to spearhead the CNY Cares Clinical Governance.

The most impactful projects that Dr. Maldonado worked on included the effort to address health disparities in Central New York and his development of COVID-19 risk mitigation strategy for patients at high risk for complications related to COVID-19. Both projects gave Dr. Maldonado the clinical satisfaction of being able to help those who are often most overlooked and who often have no voice of their own to get themselves the help they need to improve their health.

Read more: https://cnycares.org/team-spotlight/

07/20/2020

Today we kick off our Last Chance Spirit Week!

Be sure to register for our kickoff webinar today at 1:30 pm

https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/8777833840750005004

What is Spirit Week?
Each day CNYCC will provide resources on how to successfully complete Activities during Quarter 4’s remediation period

Do I need to participate?
Only if you received a ‘Yellow’ on previous Activities and want to ensure you get a ‘Green’

06/30/2020

We are pleased to recognize Kelsie Montaque for all of her hard work and dedication to CNY Cares.

Kelsie joined the CNY Cares team in 2015 as Project Manager, bringing over 15 years of experience in Program Management and Planning administration to the organization.

Kelsie lead the development of the widely successful Learning Collaborative structure, where she established a forum to share best practices and form cross systems collaborations to improve performance outcomes.

Kelsie’s devotion to the community shows through her hard work. In every issue that she has tackled at CNY Cares, there is always the underlying factors that point to social determinants of health. These social determinants of health are mainly being addressed through the intervention of our community- based organizations that she worked closely with. She has done outstanding work highlighting the value of CBO’s and their impact on healthcare.

Read more about Kelsie's great contributions here: https://cnycares.org/team-spotlight/

06/29/2020

We'd like to give a special shout-out to Siti Mack, PMP

Siti joined CNY Cares as the Manager of Workforce & Cultural Competency/Health Literacy in August of 2017. Siti’s background as a certified project management professional (PMP), her degree in Master of Health Administration (MHA) along with her experience working in healthcare systems as a liaison between DOH and OMH made her a great asset in her role at CNY Cares.

During her time at CNY Cares, Siti was able to work with many partner organizations, who had positive things to say about her dedication to her role. Rich Hughes from Circare shared, "I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Siti. She is always cheerful, positive, and willing to go the extra mile whenever I've had a question or needed her assistance."

Siti also worked on the Health Literacy Master Trainer Program, a “champion model” and skill-based training with the goal of creating a pool of local trainers capable of making sustainable changes at their respective organizations. This project resulted in 23 Master Trainers who were then asked to complete 12 hours of health literacy training within their organizations. To date, over 800 individuals including both clinical and professional staff were trained.

https://cnycares.org/team-spotlight/

06/24/2020

We are excited to recognize the great work of Brian Moran.

Brian joined the CNY Cares team in 2018 as Support Lead, bringing over a decade of professional educational training, and 6 years of IT support experience to the team. During his tenure at CNY Cares, Brian worked in the IT department and contributed his expertise to numerous projects and was the System Admin and Access Control for population health management tools.

Brian developed and maintained CNY Cares’ Population Health Management Help Desk and facilitated helpdesk workflows utilizing integrations with key business software including Zendesk and Salesforce. Brian also developed a streamlined ticketing process to more effectively resolve issues submitted through the help desk system. Brian played a key role in the IT department providing Tier I and Tier II IT support for CNY Cares team members and triaged data requests, helped to answer questions and resolve IT issues for partner organizations.

The most meaningful project Brian worked on was for the funds flow process because it gave him the opportunity to see the evidence of the impact that CNY Care’s partner organizations have on the community.

Learn more about Brian's accomplishments on our employee spotlight page: https://cnycares.org/team-spotlight

06/03/2020

As an organization focused on improving the health outcomes of the most vulnerable populations, we would like to share a few upcoming events in the Syracuse Community that address the issues of injustice:

Let Us Breathe Press Conferences in Support of NYS Police Reform – Thursday, June 4th at 3:00 PM in Forman Park, 717 E. Genesee St. Organized by NYS Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus. Syracuse is one of 8 simultaneous press conferences scheduled throughout NYS. Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter and Syracuse Common Council President Helen Hudson and others will participate.

Confronting Racism - A Zoom event sponsored by the Syracuse City School District Office of Family Engagement. Thursday, June 4th at 12:00 and 6:00 PM. Registration is required at https://forms.gle/LkdBS1ikNRbM8KCs8 to receive the Zoom link.

The Fight Against Police Terror - Saturday, June 6th from 1:00 – 2:00 PM at Syracuse City Hall, 233 E Washington St, Syracuse, NY. The event is sponsored by Black Lives Matter Syracuse and Raha Syracuse, in solidarity with other cities, to inform the public about actionable steps we can take to fight against white supremacy and institutional racism in our community.

CoVideo Chats on June 4th at noon and 6 pm on Zoom