2011 Annual Report - Visiting Nurse Service of New York

2 ANNUAL REPORT 2011
Mary Ann
Christopher
A Message from the President and Chief Executive Officer
As the new President and Chief Executive Officer of the
Visiting Nurse Service of New York, I am honored to
have been afforded the opportunity to lead the largest
and most respected not-for-profit home and community-based
health care organization in the country. I am also humbled, both
as a community health nurse and as the daughter of a nurse, to
follow in the extraordinary footsteps of Lillian Wald, the founder
of VNSNY and public health nursing in the United States.
This is an exciting time, a time of great change but also great
opportunity.
Our patients are living longer than ever before, and those with
chronic, debilitating conditions are more likely to remain in their
homes. Children and families, especially those living in poverty
and struggling daily with disability or frailty, are increasingly
marginalized. At the same time, public policy changes at the state
level, implementation of national health care reform, and the
ongoing crisis in the global economy collectively challenge us to
re-imagine how to structure, reimburse and deliver health care.
We will succeed in answering this call to action, and ensuring that
those we serve are “Living Well at Home,” by building upon what
already sets us apart.
We are the most culturally diverse community health care
organization in the world—in the most culturally diverse city
in the world.
Under the visionary leadership of my predecessor, Carol Raphael,
through the unparalleled dedication of the staff and with the devoted
constancy of the Board of Directors, VNSNY honored its mission
of caring for every patient irrespective of circumstance. Against the
backdrop of a world besieged by economic uncertainty, VNSNY
served as the safety net provider for 140,000 patients, never straying
from its mission to serve all who call upon us. Thanks to the Robin
Hood Foundation and others, first-time mothers and their babies in
our Bronx Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) continue to thrive. Also,
through the generosity of the Tiger Foundation, which provided
a special grant to our Lower East Side NFP, our nurses supported
young mothers as they realized dreams for their babies. With the
introduction of our Behavioral Health Program, VNSNY offered a
lifeline to patients suffering with depression, late-life anxiety, early
onset dementia, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Within the
framework of our Strong Foundations, an integrated team of nurses,
physical, occupational and speech therapists and social workers
maximized the functional independence of seniors and helped them
to avoid the devastating effects of falls.
The year 2011 represented many firsts for VNSNY. In February of last
year we welcomed our first terminally ill patient and her family into
the Haven, our newly established inpatient hospice unit at Bellevue.
With the opening of these doors, VNSNY introduced to those
families on an end-of-life journey the sanctuary of interprofessional
support within a framework of the most highly competent in terms
of medical intervention and the most comprehensive in terms of