Healthy Connections has received a grant to increase awareness of Covid-19 services through Community Health Workers.
Healthy Connections will hire five Community Health Workers stationed in and around the communities of Little Rock, Hot Springs, Russellville, Texarkana, and Mena. These community health representatives will provide critical services to communities disproportionately impacted by public health threats, including Covid-19.
Community Health Workers will interact with members of the communities in which they will serve. Other responsibilities will include:
- Provide education on COVID-19 prevention, testing, vaccination, and support services
- Maintain a log of activities and complete regular reports in order to meet grant objectives
- Serve as an member of Healthy Connections Covid-19 operations team, providing strategy input and feedback
- Attend community testing and vaccination events to provide outreach and support
- Refer community members to services, resources, and information based on their stated needs
- Build and maintain relationships with community members and organizational partners
- Assist with Covid-19 care Support Services including outreach, deliveries, and referrals
The five positions will be for one year. The communities will include:
- Little Rock, including Benton, Bryant, North Little Rock and other surrounding communities.
- Hot Springs, including Hot Springs Village, Malvern, Bismarck, Magnet Cove, and other surrounding communities.
- Russellville, including Dardanelle and other surrounding communities
- Texarkana, including surrounding communities
- Mena, including De Queen, Mt. Ida, Nashville, and other surrounding communities.
If interested, please visit the Healthy Connections careers page at https://healthy-connections.org/careers to learn more and apply.
We know getting sick doesn’t take a holiday. That’s why Healthy Connections is offering appointments at some clinics on Monday, July 4. Call us at 888-710-8220 for appointments. Come see us at:
- Mena – 7:45a-3p
- Hot Springs Chippewa – 7:45a-3p
- Malvern – 7:45a-3p
- Arkadelphia – 7:45a-3p
- Little Rock Midtown – 7:45a-3p
- De Queen – 7:45a-6p
Clinics at Mount Ida, Bryant, Hot Springs Central, and Hot Springs McAuley will be closed.
Find a location at https://healthy-connections.org/locations.
Healthy Connections is excited to announce its May 2022 Shining STAR employees of the month:
WEST: Paula bradley
EAST: kenzie martin
Each month across the Healthy Connections Community Health Network, exemplary employees are nominated for this award for representing our Three Pillars: Excellence, Compassion, and Community. These pillars are considered heavily when choosing winners.
As winners of this Shining STAR award, Paula and Kenzie are winners of a $50 gift card.
Paula works as the administrative assistant for Healthy Connections and is based at the Mena clinic. She was also heavily involved in the planning for 2022 Admin Days for employee training. Kenzie is a Behavioral Health Patient Care Coordinator and works at the Evolve Behavioral Health clinic at Hot Springs McAuley.
- Paula always goes above and beyond to help in any way she can. Paula worked very hard on getting everything together for the fashion show for admin day. She went above and beyond to make sure it was appropriate for the dress code but fun for everyone to enjoy.
- Paula has a very positive and professional attitude and has been an amazing addition from day 1. She is always willing to take on projects to help us better serve our patients and co-workers.
- Kenzie gives 100 percent every day she is here, from answering every phone call, taskman, or patient questions. And she is extremely dependent and loyal as a co-worker. We could NOT function without her!
- Kenzie is a hard worker and is very compassionate with her work and for the patients, we endure. She strives to be better at everything she does.
- Kenzie is a hard worker and is always willing to help. She is dependable and very good at her job. I often find myself not having to follow-up to see if something is taken care of because she has already taken care of it and let me know.
Congratulations to both Paula and Kenzie.
Thanks again this month to everyone who nominated an employee. There were a lot of great nominations. Do you know who should be our next employees to be recognized? You can nominate them by visiting https://www.healthy-connections.org/nominate.
Healthy Connections Community Health Network and Evolve Behavioral Health and Medication Management is helping celebrate this year’s Social Work Month in March with the theme “The Time is Right for Social Work” to highlight how social workers have enriched our society for more than a century and how their services continue be needed today.
The annual Social Work Month campaign is a time to show our appreciation for and to inform public, policymakers, and legislators about the services social workers provide in an array of sectors, including our community health centers.
There are almost 720,000 professional social workers in our nation, but that number is expected to rise to more than 800,000 by 2030, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. Social workers have helped drive significant, positive changes in our nation. Social workers such as social reformer Jane Addams, former Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and civil rights leaders Dorothy Height, Whitney Young and Ida B. Wells have pushed for voting rights, equal rights, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and other programs.
Social workers touch millions of lives each day and it is likely a social worker at some time will assist you, a family member, or a friend. For example, are you a student who needs athletic shoes to participate in sports, but your parents can’t afford to buy them? Talk to your school social worker. They can help you find the resources you need. Do you want a better relationship with your spouse, partner, children, or parents? A social worker can help you forge stronger connections.
Are you living with depression, anxiety, or a substance use disorder? A social worker can help you overcome them and thrive. At Evolve, Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW) provide individual family, and group mental-health therapy in our communities.
Visit www.evolvebhs.com to learn more about our social workers and the services they provide.
Healthy Connections, Inc. is being recognized for its quality improvements during the past year.
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has named Healthy Connections a recipient of five of its Community Health Quality Recognition (CHQR) awards. These awards are presented for showing notable quality improvement in areas of access, quality, health equity, and health information technology. In addition, Covid-19 awards were also introduced to recognize health centers’ contributions to the public health emergency response.
Healthy Connections was recognized as:
- Access Enhancer. Health Centers that increase the total number of patients they serve and the number of patients who receive at least one comprehensive service (mental health, substance abuse, vision, dental, and/or enabling) by at least 5 percent.
- Health Disparities Reducer. Health Centers that meet or exceed Healthy People (HP) goals in the areas of low birth weight, hypertension, or uncontrolled diabetes for at least one racial/ethnic minority group, and demonstrate at least a 10 percent improvement in areas of low birth weight, hypertension, or uncontrolled diabetes for at least one racial/ethnic group.
- Advancing HIT for Quality. Recognizes Health Centers that meet all criteria to optimize HIT services that advance telehealth, patient engagement, interoperability, and collection of social determinants of health to increase access to care and advance quality of care.
- Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). Recognizes health centers with PCHM recognition in one or more delivery sites.
- Covid-19 Testing. Recognizes health centers that tested more than 50 percent of their 2020 reported UDS patient populations from April 10, 2020, to July 2, 2021, and have a response rate of at least 50 percent to the weekly Health Center Covid-19 Survey.
Healthy Connections is a Mena-based Community Health Network with locations throughout southwest and central Arkansas. Since its founding as a home-visiting program in 1998, Healthy Connections has been able to provide much-needed health, dental, behavioral health, and social services to families of every lifestyle. Services include primary care/family medicine, specialty services including cardiology, podiatry, and women’s health, My Kids Pediatric Clinic, Evolve Behavioral Health Services and Medication Management, Health For Life Clinic, Healthy Families Arkansas Polk, and Garland counties, and more.
Learn more about Healthy Connections at www.healthy-connections.org.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses like seasonal influenza (flu) are more important than ever. Vaccination against both the flu and Covid-19 is essential to meet our community’s public health needs, to prevent further disease spread, and to protect vulnerable populations like the elderly, the immunocompromised, and people not yet old enough to receive the Covid-19 vaccine.