ConnextCare to Improve Dental Care Thanks to Grant

Pulaski-based nonprofit announces $40,000 in funding from The Delta Dental Community Care Foundation

ConnextCare recently announced a $40,000 grant from the Delta Dental Community Care Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Delta Dental of California. This funding, made possible through the access to care grants program, is dedicated to securing and increasing access to quality, affordable oral health care across the 15 states and Washington, D.C. where Delta Dental of California operates.

ConnextCare has dedicated the dollars received to support essential equipment upgrades within its remote dental programs throughout Oswego County. Currently, ConnextCare operates dental programs in the Pulaski and Fulton offices as well as at six school based health centers in the Sandy Creek, APW, Pulaski, Mexico and Fulton school districts. In

Loretto coach promoted to manager of employee retention

Michelle Cuttler was Loretto’s very first employee coach when the organization launched its coaching program in early 2020. She has now been promoted to manager of retention for Loretto’s employees.

As manager of retention, Cuttler

July 2022, ConnextCare announced it had yet again expanded its dental program to the Manor at Seneca Hill, a skilled nursing facility in Oswego. This notable expansion last year was also made possible by funds received from a Delta Dental Community Care Foundation grant in 2022.

“We truly value and appreciate the support from the Community Care Foundation that we have received over the last several years. This year we will be using some of the dollars received to purchase new, hand-held digital x-ray units that allow our team to take an image of the student’s mouth at the school, which will then be read by the supervising dentist at our main Pulaski location. In just a few minutes, the dentist will detail a treatment plan for that stu- will lead Loretto’s long-term employee engagement strategy by developing employee training and retention initiatives that supporting the organization’s employee engagement strategy. She will help employees navigate career ladders so they can advance within the company, including Loretto’s LPN apprentice program; and she will oversee employee recognition programs, including benchmark celebrations, graduations dent to address any concerns noted and thus treatment is expedited,” said Tricia Peter-Clark, president and CEO of ConnextCare. and other programs to help employees remain and flourish at Loretto.

Since 2011, the Community Care Foundation has contributed more than $130 million to local community partners. The goal of these partnerships is to increase access to care, address health disparities, drive health equity and promote innovation in the oral health field. Through this strategic grant, ConnextCare can continue to provide indispensable services to the most vulnerable in the communities it serves and positively influence the lives of more individuals, including the patients and families at the School Based Health Centers and the Manor at Seneca Hill.

“Michelle’s dedication to making sure others succeed at work is precisely what the long-term care industry needs, and her success as a coach was exactly the reason why we expanded the employee coach team,” said Holly Hoehner, interim vice president of human resources at Loretto.

St. Joseph’s to Stop Hiring Travel Nurses Within 50 Mile Radius

St. Joseph’s Health will no longer hire travel nurses who live within 50 miles of Syracuse.

“We truly appreciate the sacrifices that travel staff made to help us during the pandemic. They filled many gaps in our workforce, allowing us to continue to provide safe, exceptional care to our patients,” said physician Steven Hanks, president and CEO of St. Joseph’s Health and St. Peter’s Health Partners. “It’s now time to move away from external contract labor.”

Travel rates were designed to accommodate for the fact that people were leaving their homes and families, living in hotels, and traveling to hospitals far away.

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“What we’re experiencing in the post-pandemic period is that our travel staff are more likely to not be actually travelling, and instead are moving over from neighboring facilities in order to take advantage of the enhanced rates,” said Hanks. “That’s not what the rates were designed for. They were meant to be paid during the exceptional circumstances where you have no other choice but to hire labor from outside the market. Having travel staff who aren’t actually travelling work alongside our colleagues at a higher rate of pay causes resentment among co-workers and is not financially sustainable for our health system.”

A new policy has been created that restricts anyone who resides within 50 miles of the hospital where they’d be working from being hired as travel staff.