I interviewed Beth in December, 2014 for a KHA RN position. At the time, there was no position available that fit Beth's extensive nursing background. However, we kept in touch as I knew she would be ideal for the KHA team in some fashion.
In January, 2015, Medicare ruled to reimburse primary care physicians for Chronic Care Management services defined as 30-minutes of non-face-to-face care provided to patients with Medicare primary and at least two chronic conditions. KHA agreed to implement the program but we would need a lead to create, develop and implement processes surrounding the new Medicare ruling. I knew exactly the person to hire.
Beth Sparaco, RN was hired at Kennedy Health Alliance on January 5, 2015 as our Chronic Care Management Nurse. After a short period of orientation, Beth hit the ground running and I mean sprinting. To date, there are 384 patients enrolled in the KHA CCM program.
Since the inception of the CCM program, Beth has developed patient consents, workflow processes, and education and marketing materials along with provide telephone chronic care management to our patients. She provides medication reconciliation/adherence, disease specific education, appointment coordination, social support.
There are many incidences to recognize Beth for her professionalism, passion and commitment to the safety and health maintenance for our patience. However, I recently learned that a KHA patient who has been receiving CCM was visited by a Home Care RN on a weekend day. The patient had a wound that wasn't healing and had additional decline but not failure. The patient requested the Home Care RN call Beth as a trusting relationship had been established. I might add that Beth's working hours are Monday-Friday, 8:30-5:00pm and she is an hourly employee.