United Hospital Fund Provides Over $1.3 Million for Grants to Improve Health Services in New York City | Archived

Release Date: 07.16.2009
Contact: rdeluna@uhfnyc.org
Contact Phone: 212 494 0733

The United Hospital Fund today announced 24 grants totaling $1,326,000 to improve health services in New York City. The strategic grants are a part of the approximately $2.2 million that the Fund distributes annually to support the development of model projects, sponsor research to analyze systemic problems, and foster innovative solutions. Beneficiaries of the Fund's grants include not-for-profit and public hospitals, nursing homes, and health care, academic, and public interest organizations.

Among the wide-ranging initiatives funded through these grants are programs to redesign the Medicaid application, to implement and evaluate a pioneering breastfeeding promotion program in two hospitals, to produce two training videos (one to reduce cardiac deaths and another to promote perinatal safety), to assess and then make recommendations concerning the practice of palliative care in New York City hospitals, to expand the services of a center serving HIV-positive patients to include vulnerable patients with other types of chronic illnesses, to develop recommendations for improving the training, quality, and stability of the home care workforce, and to train volunteers to teach basic health literacy skills to specific groups of at-risk patients.

“These 24 United Hospital Fund grants aim to improve many different aspects of New York's complex health care system,” said James R. Tallon, Jr., president of the United Hospital Fund. “But the recipients of these grants all have something in common; they are all dedicated to testing new and innovative approaches and finding solutions that will better serve the people of New York, particularly our most vulnerable populations—the critically ill and the chronically ill, the youngest and the oldest, and those New Yorkers with the most limited means.”

Expanding Health Insurance Coverage
Health Research, Inc. ($30,000 over 2 years)
To provide statewide Medicaid claims and encounter data and technical assistance for United Hospital Fund research on strengthening the Medicaid program.

Medicaid Matters New York ($50,000)
To support a statewide Medicaid consumer advocacy coalition seeking to improve access to services.

Children's Defense Fund-New York ($70,000)
Coalition of New York State Public Health Plans ($20,000)
Community Service Society ($20,000)
To work collaboratively to redesign the application form for community Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and Family Health Plus with the goal of promoting greater access to coverage.

Improving the Quality of Care
Richmond University Medical Center ($75,000)
Staten Island University Hospital ($75,000)
Fund for Public Health in New York/New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene ($33,000)
To provide a second year of funding to support and expand the work of the two hospitals in implementing, promoting, and evaluating the effectiveness of their breastfeeding programs.

The Center to Advance Palliative Care ($100,000)
To assess the practice of palliative care in New York City hospitals and to summarize the findings in a report that includes recommendations on improving the quality, practice, and reach of palliative care programs in the city.

GNYHA Foundation ($75,000)
To produce two training videos that will sustain and extend the achievements of the Rapid Response System Collaborative and the Perinatal Safety Collaborative, two components of the Fund's joint quality improvement initiatives with Greater New York Hospital Association.

Visiting Nurse Service of New York ($100,000)
To plan and pilot test a program to provide enhanced services and support to family caregivers, and to integrate United Hospital Fund's Next Step in Care materials into VNSNY's home care services.

Redesigning Health Care Services
Alianza Dominicana, Inc. ($70,000)
To implement the Healthy Living Project to reduce childhood obesity among clients of the Alianza family support mental health clinic.

Commission on the Public's Health System ($50,000)
To identify the characteristics of culturally competent health care by surveying families and providers.

Highbridge Community Life Center ($75,000)
To plan a multi-partner initiative that engages community-based organizations, government, health care and social service providers, and funders to create and support a comprehensive strategy for improving health in Highbridge that will link government programs and policies with strong neighborhood initiatives.

St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center/Center for Comprehensive Care ($75,000)
To reorient and expand the Center for Comprehensive Care Morningside Clinic for HIV-positive patients into a patient-centered medical home, to include care for formerly incarcerated men and women, and other persons with chronic diseases.

Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, Inc. ($75,000)
To develop a set of recommendations for restructuring the community-based long-term care delivery system to improve the training, quality, and stability of the home care workforce.

Center for Home Care Policy and Research, Visiting Nurse Service of New York ($85,000)
To analyze patient characteristics, service utilization patterns, spending, and health outcomes for home care beneficiaries in four Medicaid community-based long-term care programs, in order to inform system redesign options.

The What to Expect Foundation ($48,000)
To develop a business case for integration of the Baby Basics Program—an education program for expectant mothers with limited health literacy skills—into existing state prenatal funding.

Promoting Health Care Voluntarism
Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center ($30,000)
To expand the Learning for Life program, which engages volunteers to teach basic health literacy skills to diabetic patients in the hospital's outpatient clinic. With this second year of funding, the program will target caregivers of these patients and also engage participants in the hospital's adult day care center.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center ($20,000)
To build the capacity of the Visible Ink volunteer program, a one-on-one writing program that pairs cancer patients with professional writers to work on a writing project of the patient's choice.

New York Methodist Hospital ($40,000)
To recruit and train health careers students as volunteers to assess the effectiveness and value of the Step by Step Project—a volunteer-driven program that teaches parents with low-level health literacy basic literacy skills as they relate to child development milestones.

North Shore-Long Island Jewish Medical Center ($30,000)
To create the Elderlife Program to recruit and train volunteers to be part of a health care team aimed at improving care for frail elderly patients who are at risk for cognitive and functional decline during hospitalization.

NYU Langone Medical Center ($40,000)
To create the “Let's Talk about Sex” program, in which volunteers trained by Planned Parenthood will conduct one-on-one and group discussions with adolescent patients from the Stephen D. Hassenfeld Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.

St. John's Episcopal Hospital ($40,000)
To continue the HealthSense program, an innovative health literacy program currently being offered to patients and their caregivers in the family practice clinic, and to expand the program to the ob-gyn and pediatric clinics.


About the United Hospital Fund: The United Hospital Fund is a health services research and philanthropic organization whose mission is to shape positive change in health care for the people of New York. ###