GHP Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Awards 2018

26 GHP / 2018 Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Awards , With over two decades experience in the healthcare space, Wilshire predominately serves the older adult population. However, the organisation’s dedicated team are available to anyone in the community who is recovering from an illness or disease in-home, families needing end of life care, or individuals in a place of loss, transition or difficult time and needing additional community-based support: such as counselling, mediation, or in-home volunteer support. Kelly outlines how the organisation works to ensure excellence across every aspect of its vast service offering. Most Innovative Community Health Organisation – California & GHP Excellence Award in Tele-Health Services 2018 Wilshire Health & Community Services is a mission-driven healthcare organization, providing a spectrum of services to the community through clinical and social-emotional care across three agencies. We caught up with Kelly Donohue, Public Relations Specialist, to find out more about the agency and how it works to provide award-winning service to everyone it has the privilege of supporting. “As a committed member of the healthcare community, at Wilshire we have continued to be leaders in quality care and innovation for over 20 years. We accomplish this by navigating the ever-changing healthcare climate to meet the needs of our patients and our community, while honouring our mission: ‘Helping People Live a Better Life’. We are unique in our approach, as we combine healthcare, such as in-home clinical hospice and home health care, with spiritual and social emotional support including: music therapists, spiritual counsellors, grief counselling, senior peer counselling, conflict resolution services, caregiver support, and in-home volunteer support.” This mission helps drive the organisation to continue adapting around the latest developments in the healthcare market, as Kelly explores. “Fundamentally, Wilshire’s core values are to serve the community with integrity, trust and innovation. Our mission and core values ensure that we always stay in the forefront of our emerging industry because we listen. We listen to the innovative ideas of our employees, we encourage feedback from our community, and we stay connected to emerging trends nationally. Creating a feedback loop at a small and large scale allows us to adapt to industry changes when necessary. “For example, thanks to our recent successes in telehealth, we are expanding through our subsidiary, Wilshire Connected Care, to provide virtual services to hospitals on a national scale. Hospitals will be able to use Wilshire’s telehealth services in order to bridge the gap in care when a patient is discharged and sent home but either doesn’t receive home health services or is subsequently discharged from home health early. Telehealth allows clinicians to check in with patients remotely, which reduces re-hospitalization and maintains a patient’s quality of life while healing at home.” In such a competitive market, Wilshire differentiates itself from healthcare competitors by closely listening to the needs of the community, and thus evolving and growing to support those needs. This is vital for the ongoing future of this dynamic healthcare provider, as Kelly highlights in her concluding comments. “Over the past year, we have successfully piloted and implemented telehealth services to the Central of California region, so that our patients and their families can access critical support through technology, in- between their in-home visits with clinicians. One of the greatest challenges facing healthcare in the coming years is the rapidly growing older adult population. It is projected that there will not be enough healthcare providers to support the healthcare demand of the baby boomer generation. Our telehealth services are one of several ways we continue to go above and beyond to serve that population. “Meeting the healthcare needs of our patients is critical, but we also help fill the gaps amongst older adult populations in other ways., Services such as counselling, behavioural health, conflict resolution, social engagement, and transportation are available to the community, all at no cost to the client or patient. It is this dynamic approach that allows us to face the industry challenges head on, by meeting people where they are at through a multi- disciplinary approach. Moving forward, we will continue to focus on our service user and continue to provide them with the support they need.” HP180025 Corporate Team © Wilshire Health & Community Services Inc Kelly Donohue © Wilshire Health & Community Services Inc