InvisALERT Solutions – ObservSMART

Archive for the ‘Summer 2020 Issue’ Category

We Are All Essential: Surviving the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Supportive Housing Agency

In early March 2020, NYC was on the cusp of true panic mode related to the Coronavirus, with calls for mass isolation and social distancing, a rush to buy vast quantities of toilet paper and supplies of hand sanitizer and masks rapidly exhausted. Very little guidance was in the public domain...

Surviving the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Behavioral Health Effects of Social Distancing and the Social Safety Net

In communities across the United States, social distancing measures are in place to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This is necessary to flatten the curve for Coronavirus infection rates and not overburden our healthcare system as there is no effective treatment or a vaccine on the horizon....

Helping Vulnerable Populations During COVID-19: Challenges of Mitigation in Congregate Residential Settings

In New York City, tens of thousands of people with serious mental illness or developmental disabilities live in congregate housing or homeless shelters. For behavioral health agencies like the Institute for Community Living (ICL), the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an urgent challenge: With over...

HDSW’s Living Room: Crisis Day Respite for the COVID-19 Crisis

Crisis in every form, including behavioral health, social, economic and medical, accompanies a pandemic. So what happens to face-to-face crisis services for vulnerable populations when needs are greater, access is more difficult, and social distancing and health risks turn already-fragile worlds...

CBC’s Pathway Home Response to COVID-19 and Future Implications

As we enter the third month of social distancing and in an evolving healthcare landscape with COVID-19, community-based care management teams are adapting and testing innovative operational approaches to ensure the needs of the people they serve are being met. This adaptation is taking place in...

Current Telehealth Expansion in the Behavioral Health Sector

Technology permeates almost every facet of our lives, personally and professionally, making communication easier and faster. With seemingly limitless avenues for connection, technology increases the number of touchpoints between people. Now in the middle of an unprecedented heath crisis, many...

Using Data Geomapping for COVID-19 Hotspotting

Coordinated Behavioral Care (CBC) Independent Practice Association (IPA) has been developing over the last year a real-time interactive Geomap of all the network agencies, programs and services across the 5 boroughs using data from NYS OMH, OASAS, DOH as well as internal data sources. When...

Care Management Responses to COVID-19: Lessons from CBC Health Home’s ADAPT Series

Coordinated Behavioral Care (CBC) Health Home (HH), in recognition of the diligent work continuously done by CBC’s citywide Care Management Agencies (CMAs) and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic launched the ADAPT Series, allowing CMAs to document their best practices in Applying Dynamic...

Adapting to Respond to COVID-19

Since 2016, Coordinated Behavioral Care (CBC), a city-wide Behavioral Health IPA and a lead Health Home, has overseen an incredibly successful preventive case management program, funded by the Staten Island PPS, and in collaboration with Staten Island (SI) community-based behavioral health agencies...

Healthcare Workers: Remember to Care for Yourself Too

The anxiety and fear resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic can be profound, and nowhere is that more evident than with front line healthcare workers. Working long hours in substandard conditions with patients who are often very ill and highly contagious, they fear for their personal health and that...