Karen Gomes, vice president of Clinical Services for Home Health VNA, and chief clinical officer for Home Health Foundation.
Home Health VNA has received a $150,000 grant from Cardinal Health Foundation to help patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Money comes from Cardinal’s E3 Patient Safety Grant Program. Home Health VNA is one of 13 grantees who have received multi-year grants to support work toward improving health outcomes for high-risk patients.
“We are thrilled to receive this major grant from Cardinal Health Foundation in support of our project to develop and implement a multidisciplinary approach to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) management for patients with moderate to severe disease,” said John G. Albert, president and CEO of Home Health VNA.
“This three-year, $150,000 grant will allow us to develop new and innovative interventions in the care and treatment of patients with COPD,” said Karen Gomes, vice president of Clinical Services for Home Health VNA, and chief clinical officer for Home Health Foundation. “We are confident that, over the course of this grant, patients and families will become better prepared and able to partner effectively with their clinicians, and will make informed decisions about their goals of care for improved outcomes and quality of life.”
Home Health VNA also joins other 2016 E3 Patient Safety grantees in a learning collaborative facilitated by the Alliance for Integrated Medication Management (AIMM). The collaborative is designed to help the organizations share their learning and more quickly implement evidence-based practices.
Since 2008, Cardinal Health Foundation has invested $16 million to hundreds of healthcare organizations through its E3 Patient Safety Grant Program. “We support a wide array of patient safety work, but the focus is always on accelerating the rate of change with two goals: improved patient outcomes and reduced healthcare costs,” said Dianne Radigan, vice president of community relations at Cardinal Health.
Because of the complexities in healthcare and healthcare systems, it takes an average of 17 years for evidence-based practices to be fully implemented into healthcare practices, according to the National Institutes of Health. “Within a year or two, recent grantees are affecting change, eliminating errors and creating lasting improvement,” Radigan said. “They are reducing readmissions to hospitals, reducing lengths-of-stay and, most importantly, saving lives.”