TAKE FIVE!

September 21, 2021

Samantha Dorn:
Hi, I’m Samantha Dorn and welcome to Sullivan 180 Presents… Take Five! Our guest today is Carol Ryan from Health Promotion Strategies, LLC. Welcome Carol, and thanks for being here.

Carol Ryan:
Hi, Samantha. Thank you for having me!

Samantha Dorn:
To start us off, can you please introduce yourself, your title and let us know about your organization?

Carol Ryan:
My name is Carol Ryan, as you said, I am the President of Health Promotion Strategies. It’s a community health consulting firm where we work with organizations like nonprofits, hospitals, government, things like that to help improve community health.

Samantha Dorn:
Great! Can you talk a little bit about the new “US Health Resources and Services Administration” (HRSA) “Rural Health Network Planning Grant”?

Carol Ryan:
Yes, I can. I’ve been fortunate to be chosen to be the project director for that grant. This is a planning grant: a one-year grant funded by HRSA, which is a division of the U S Government Health and Human Services. HRSA deals mostly with rural areas, to improve health and improve efficiencies. So this grant is to plan “a sustainable community health worker program” in Sullivan County. This program is designed to help keep people with chronic disease out of the hospital and out of the emergency room by providing “community health workers”.

Samantha Dorn:
So why is the “community health worker program” important for Sullivan County?

Carol Ryan:
Well, it’s important because it fills a gap for services that are not met in the county. The county has very poor health rankings. People have been hearing for years about the health rankings. We are in the lowest quartile for the state and, the “community health worker program” could provide connection and imporve access between people and healthcare and social services. It just makes that ‘human connection’. Most people know how confusing and difficult it can be dealing with insurance forms: Medicare, doctor’s offices, hospitals. It’s very confusing for most people and it can be overwhelming for people who have other vulnerabilities. So the “community health worker” would provide a person from the community that people can relate to and feel safe with. That person would facilitate access to services and care.

Samantha Dorn:
Wow, that’s great! What are the next steps after the planning grant?

Carol Ryan:
Hopefully, we can apply for the grant! I say “we”, and that would be” the network”. I should mention what the network is: right now, it is the “Hands 4 Health” network. Sullivan 180 is the lead, and the partners are Garnet Health and Garnet Catskill, Maternal Infant Services Network, Sullivan County Public Health Services and Sun River. That network could expand if we identify that we need more partners. If the network applies for an “implementation grant” that would provide three years of funding. This would allow us to get this program off the ground while we have time to look for more sustainable sources of funding. So the next step would be to apply for three years of “implementation funding”.

Samantha Dorn:
Great. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

Carol Ryan:
Just thank you to everybody. It’s exciting to see this happening and I look forward to working with everybody.

Samantha Dorn:
Great. Thank you for joining us today, Carol. And thanks for helping Sullivan 180 build a healthy community.

Carol Ryan:
You’re welcome. Thank you.