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January 31, 2022 30 mins

Retention Week 2022

A slew of special guests help us highlight this year’s Retention Week messages

GUEST BIOS:

  • AJ Alegria: Senior Manager and Vice President of Healthcare Center Operations at AHF and has also held a range of related roles at the organization focused on client experience and improving healthcare center operations. Learn more about AJ: LinkedIn
  • Donna Stidham: Chief of Managed Care at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, whose responsibilities include helping empower both healthcare providers and their patients within the network of AHF. Learn more about Donna: LinkedIn
  • Jose Ramos: Regional sales director for the Western Region of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, helping manage and develop staff and processes that promote AHF Pharmacy’s community profile, increasing sales and revenue in pharmacies, and meeting proposed yearly budgets for the region. Learn more about Jose: LinkedIn
  • Whitney Engeran: Senior Director at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, helping oversee a wide range of projects, initiatives, and goals within the organization. Learn more about Whitney: LinkedIn
  • Laura Boudreau: Chief of Operations/Risk Management and Quality Improvement at AHF. Her mission is to unite the various and complex functions of AHF to ensure that everything and everyone work smoothly to accomplish the organization’s mission. Learn more about Laura: LinkedIn

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[1:21] -- Why Client Experience Matters

AJ Alegria answers the question of why client experience is so central at AHF

Reputation is central at AHF, because if patients don’t trust an organization, that organization can’t deliver them lifesaving care. Patients are more inclined to do business with an organization that makes them feel good, respected, and appreciated, and the better a patient feels, the more services they use. The more services they use, the more they stay in care. 

[8:05] -- Radical Collaboration at AHF

Donna Stidham: Transformative collaboration principles can and should be applied at an organization like AHF

Donna uses the use case of a patient who has been receiving consistent care but is moving to a new region. Close collaboration across regional offices could ensure that this person doesn’t get lost in the shuffle and is able to access continued care even as their geographical location changes. Constantly thinking about making a patient’s experience positive wherever they are is one of the most central forms of collaborative principles at AHF.

[12:11] -- Reducing Stigma and Reaching Undocumented People

How Western Region sales director Jose Ramos is working to bring healthcare to marginalized groups

The entire sales team in the western region knows that educating and talking to people out in the field is central, particularly in cities close to the border. Active outreach is key in letting undocumented people know there are services available to them when they’re in need.

[15:06] -- Linkage and Retention: Two Specialties, One Mission

Whitney Engeran on how linkage and retention specialists can work together

Communication is key when various specialists are working towards the shared mission of enhanced patient care. When there are indications that people might be falling out of care, turning their first encounters with team members into lasting connections is key— positive, patient-centric, and communicative from one interaction to the next.

[23:43] -- Finding Patients on the Move

Dr. Laura Boudreau on tracking down patients in need of care

Community health workers are an essential tool in locating patients, with some even acting as retention specialists who can go so far as to make house visits to track down patients. Another promising strategy being tested is using patients’ comfort with pharmacies over clinics in order to deliver messages through that outlet. 

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