NYC Health + Hospitals Awarded $2.3 Million Grant to Expand Staff Training
Training will enhance clinical, cultural competency, and leadership skills
Feb 17, 2017
NYC Health + Hospitals has received a $2.3 million grant, over a two-year period, from the New York State Department of Health for staff training. Through the grant, the health system will be able to provide new and expanded staff training at various locations to enhance clinical skills, cultural competency, leadership innovation, computer skills, and behavioral health care.
“This grant will help our Workforce Development team expand training and retraining opportunities for staff across the health system,” said Rosa M. Colon-Kolacko, PhD, Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer, NYC Health + Hospitals. “We are grateful to the New York State Department of Health for recognizing our Workforce Development team with this important training grant.”
“This grant will help ensure that our staff receive necessary training and retraining in some very important areas across the system,” said Ivelesse Mendez-Justiniano, Assistant Vice President, Workforce Development, NYC Health + Hospitals. “Preparing our staff to provide the best patient care possible is at the core of what we do, and it’s essential to improving the patient experience.”
As part of the grant, the health system’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion will offer staff trainings focused on the following three areas:
• Interreligious Awareness for Patients and Staff – Staff learn practical skills to assess and meet a patient’s religious or spiritual and cultural needs, understand key demographics and topics in health care related to religious beliefs and accommodations, and discuss real-life case scenarios and strategies for culturally responsive engagement.
• Strategies for Fostering Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace – Staff identify best practices in managing and working within diverse teams and strategies for fostering diversity and inclusion at work, including proactively addressing unconscious biases and the intersection of LGBTQ issues and religious identities in the workplace.
• Best Practices in Facilitating Communication with Patients Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing or Who Have Other Disabilities – Staff learn in-depth skills for best practices in ensuring access and communication for people with disabilities, including how to identify patients who are deaf or hard of hearing, and the use of available tools and technologies to facilitate communication.
“We make significant investments in training our staff to provide culturally responsive care because our staff care for some of New York City’s most diverse communities,” said Matilde Roman, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, NYC Health + Hospitals. “Our patients represent every culture, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, and we take great pride in making sure our patients receive culturally responsive care.”
Over the last 10 years, the health system has received multiple training grants under New York State Department of Health’s Health Workforce Retraining Initiative. The grant is awarded every two years, with the goal of supporting training and retraining of health industry workers with the skills necessary in the health care market today.