The top award – $100,000 – went to Androscoggin Valley Home Care Services in Berlin. (Getty Images)
The challenge was not a small one: help solve the health care workforce shortage. Still, at least five organizations submitted pitches this spring for a chance at one of HealthForce NH’s innovation grants.
Ideas ranged from education, training, and recruitment to retention and quality of life for those already in health care organizations.
The top award – $100,000 – went to Androscoggin Valley Home Care Services in Berlin, which plans to make it easier for LNAs and local health care organizations who need them to connect. Androscoggin Valley Home Care Services provides nursing and personal care for seniors and adults with disabilities in Coos County.
The organization will train its LNAs to work in the local health organizations, getting them up to speed on each location’s orientation, routines, and culture. It’s pairing that with a new online scheduling portal where health care providers can post shifts and LNAs can sign up for them in real time, even on short notice.
“I like to think of this idea as the ‘Uber of health care,’ transforming the way health care staffing is scheduled and delivered,” said Kate Luczko, senior director of HealthForce NH, an initiative of the Foundation for Healthy Communities, in a statement.
Other winners included Lightcap Health of Durham, which received $60,000 for its project, a video subscription service that will offer nurses training and education to mitigate burnout.
New Hampshire Hospital in Concord received a third-place $40,000 grant for recruiting and training underserved populations, including new Americans and low-level offenders, to work with psychiatric patients.
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