To be a health care provider is to answer a calling. For some, the journey to health care is a straight line; for others, the road is winding. This series features stories from ECU Health team members who took the winding road, but found the destination to be worth the effort.
“Nursing was not my first plan.”
That may be a surprising admission from Trish Baise, Chief Nursing Executive at ECU Health, but she’s very clear that she did not initially intend to pursue a career in health care.
“From first grade on, I was going to go to law school and join the FBI,” Baise said, but those plans fell flat during her freshman year of college. “I got to college and felt overwhelmed my freshman year. I wasn’t excited about the classes I was taking.”
Like many students, Baise worked full time to put herself through college; during that time, she took a student job dispatching for the police department. She continued taking classes, despite not being sure how to proceed with her career.
“I still thought I might go to law school, but I wasn’t entirely sure,” Baise said. “I was just trying to get my undergraduate work completed.”
At that point, Baise said she ended up getting married and had her first child, still with no degree. “I was taking classes part time and working full time, this time dispatching for the fire department,” Baise said. To do that, she was required to get her Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) license, and that’s when the lightbulb went off.
“I realized I preferred being on the ambulance as opposed to dispatching,” Baise said. “I wanted to be in the action.”
Baise said what drew her to health care was the focus on team and purpose; it was clear to her the impact these providers had every day. “That’s when I found my calling, and it started me off in a completely different direction than I thought I was going to go,” she said. Baise then enrolled in nursing school to get her associate’s degree.
Despite the hard turn from law, Baise said her previous jobs and education have absolutely influenced her current work.
“My mind works in an investigative way, seeking the truth,” Baise explained. “A large part of my work, especially in leadership, but also as a clinician, is gathering data, finding facts, getting to the truth and identifying what information you need to make an informed decision and plan. The law and regulatory classes I took as a student — you have to have a broad understanding of these things in health care. They impact the decisions we make.”
Having that baseline knowledge helped Baise be successful as she transitioned from the bedside to leadership roles, even if being a nurse leader wasn’t her intention.
“I had a mentor who joked that some people walk forward through a door, but I’ve been backing in the door my whole career,” Baise laughed. “I always ended up migrating toward positions with leadership responsibility, even if I wasn’t actively seeking out those things. I just saw a gap and I had a skill set that would be helpful. I’ve always wanted to know where I can make the biggest impact, to lead and inspire teams and to transform.”
That keys in to Baise’s calling to “report to someone I’m ethically aligned with, build a great team and do great things together.” Leadership, she said, allows her to fulfill that personal mission in big ways.
Achieving her own goals has been made possible by working with ECU Health.
“I just celebrated my year anniversary,” Baise said. “ECU Health’s mission brought me here. I’m aligned ethically with the mission, and we have a huge runway in front of us to do great things together. There is no better space to do great things than here, where we can be creative and we have an academic medical center that can provide any procedure.” The availability of resources to support nurses and rural health care is another big draw for Baise: “We can put things in place to achieve our goal of being a national model for nursing excellence and rural medicine. As my career and my desire to impact nursing has grown, ECU Health has given me a chance to achieve those goals.”
To anyone considering a career in health care, Baise has some simple advice. “I’d say talk to people they know who work in health care. Shadow, volunteer and see what the day-to-day is for those roles.” Baise also noted that there are many options when it comes to working in health care. “It’s so broad that there are clinical options and operational. There’s something for everyone. The key is to find your passion and where your skills can be used best.”
As for Baise’s journey, she said it’s been pretty amazing. “From an EMT to a paramedic, to a nurse ranging from an associate’s degree to a doctorate, and now in a leadership role, I’ve loved every minute of it. It was not my original plan, but the non-plan plan has worked out pretty well.”
Asthma is a chronic lung disease that causes inflammation and swelling of the airways, and it affects an estimated five million children in the United States. The annual economic cost of asthma is more than $81.9 billion, and in children ages 5-17, asthma is the number one cause of school absenteeism and is among the top reasons for pediatric emergency department (ED) visits and hospital admissions.
World Asthma Day, which is May 7, seeks to raise awareness about asthma and improve the lives of all people with asthma. The ECU Health Regional Pediatric Asthma Program has similar goals, including to reduce ED and inpatient admissions for children with asthma, decrease school absenteeism and to increase the quality of life for asthmatic children in eastern North Carolina. It does this by offering asthma testing, asthma education, tools to manage asthma, access to community resources and medication assistance. Their work with eastern North Carolina public schools has been a particularly effective way to reach children in rural North Carolina communities.
The ECU Health Regional Pediatric Asthma Program, first begun in 1995, initially served Pitt and Greene counties. The pilot program was a partnership between the ECU Health Maynard Children’s Hospital, Community Health programs and a local elementary school. In 1996, the hospital was awarded a three-year grant from the Duke Endowment to further support the development of a comprehensive pediatric asthma program model that focused on children in grades K–5. As a result, they saw a 40% decrease in ED visits by school-aged children, a 50% decrease in student absences and a 50% decrease in inpatient cost of care for school-aged asthmatic children.
The program has since expanded to serve 29 counties in eastern North Carolina, and the number of public schools served has increased to 16.
“Our legal team and the school boards establish contracts with the elementary schools that renew on a rolling basis, and these allow us to do asthma testing, communicate with parents, liaise with the children’s PCPs, help the kids access medication and ensure they are compliant,” said Bailey Edwards, respiratory care manager of the Pediatric Asthma Program. A respiratory therapist who has worked at ECU Health for nine years, Edwards joined the team after working bedside in the NICU and PICU. “I saw so many kids with asthma come through our hospital with severe symptoms.”
In addition to Edwards, the team is comprised of a medical director, a social worker, nurses and three additional RTs. Edwards and the team have worked hard to grow and improve the Pediatric Asthma Program’s scope. Once a child is referred by the school nurse, an asthma care manager contacts the parents for the consent to treat.
“I call the parents and introduce myself, tell them about the program and learn more about their child,” Edwards said. Then, Edwards goes to that child’s school and performs a fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) test with the child, which determines how much lung inflammation is present and how well inhaled steroids suppress that inflammation.
“Some of these kids have outrageously high FeNOs but didn’t know it – they didn’t realize they couldn’t breathe,” Edwards said. “I call their doctor after my assessment and let them know my findings and recommendations. Then we figure out how to get the child what they need.”
Medications are a key part of the child’s treatment, but often their families cannot afford them.
“We provide medications for free or at low cost through a Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals grant. These medications can keep kids out of the hospital,” Edwards said.
The asthma team also provides education to the children and their parents about how to use the medications properly and potential causes of asthma exacerbations, such as tobacco smoke, dust, weather change or exercise. Once a treatment plan has been established, the asthma team follows up regularly for several months to ensure the child is compliant and the plan is effective.
“A month after initial treatment, I often hear parents say, ‘My kid is my kid again,’ and the child is laughing and playing because they can breathe,” Edwards said.
The program’s reach into public schools continues to grow; nine more schools have pending contracts.
“Our outreach to schools is based on what we see in the emergency departments and hospitals,” Edwards said. “Once we identify these problem areas, we connect with primary care physicians and school nurses to establish relationships.”
Many of those connections are made through lunch and learns the team hosts at regional schools.
“We bring treats and give an hour presentation about our services, update the school nurses on asthma guidelines and tell them how they can refer to us,” she said. Doing this has allowed the program to get many more referrals. “What started as a trickle has now turned into a waterfall.”
Going through the schools, said Sue Anne Pilgreen, manager for the Pediatric Asthma and Eastern Carolina Injury Prevention Programs (ECIPP), is the best way to connect with children in rural areas.
“It is impossible for us to physically be in every county, but our regional partnerships with school nurses and primary care providers gives us a direct pipeline to these children, and they know we are only a phone call or school visit away,” Pilgreen said. “We take a holistic approach in caring for our patients and their families, and sometimes that means helping them find better housing, reliable transportation or mental health resources. Looking at a family’s social determinants of health and helping to fill some of those gaps is a critical piece of caring for children in eastern North Carolina.”
This program aims to overcome the disparity in health care options for many of the children they treat.
“You see families with no food, no electricity and no ability to afford medicine,” Edwards said. “The parents don’t want to take their kids out of school to see the doctor because that child has already missed so much school because of their asthma, and they can’t afford to take the time off work themselves. This program strives to eliminate those barriers.”
While the public school outreach is a major part of the program, it’s not the only way they are treating asthmatic children in rural North Carolina.
“We work with Dr. William Wooten, our medical director, in having monthly pulmonary clinics that provide specialty level care in places that don’t have those resources,” Edwards said. “It started in Jacksonville and moved to Richlands. Now we have three clinics — Richlands Pulmonary Clinic, ECU Tarboro and ECU Edenton — and more locations requesting clinics of their own.”
Like the school outreach, these clinics reduce the burden for families who cannot travel farther away.
“We’re cutting into that lack of transportation or gas money,” Edwards said. “And in places that don’t have clinics, we are gaining more school contracts.”
Looking forward, Edwards said the next goal is to increase their scope of research and apply for more grant money.
“We applied for a Vision Grant, which we should hear about this summer, and we are exploring research options, especially ones that demonstrate the program’s efficacy,” Edwards said.
These efforts will support the program’s continued growth and help them meet new opportunities to better serve eastern North Carolina.
That’s important, Edwards said, because since 2021, they’ve seen a 378% increase in the number of referrals and a 312% increase in the number of cases managed. This program, she emphasized, is unique in that it helps children and their families understand asthma so they can control it and have a high quality of life.
“There’s no program in North Carolina like us, and a lot of people reach out to us about what we’re doing,” Edwards said.
The program is always looking for more effective and efficient ways to reach families, because children with asthma are often invisible to those not looking for specific symptoms.
“You see a kid at school who doesn’t speak above a whisper or doesn’t speak in complete sentences. They don’t run around and play. They look fine, but to someone who is trained, you can tell their asthma isn’t well controlled,” Edwards said. “Asthma can go dormant and then come back; it can silence you. But this program can set you up for the rest of your life.”
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ECU Health and the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University participated in Eastern AHEC’s Health Careers Expo on Monday, April 29. The event welcomed high school students from Wayne County Public Schools to explore diverse health care professions and educational pathways available in eastern North Carolina.
Eastern AHEC Pathways Program serves the health care community by building a group of future providers that are equipped for their career. As part of their student services, they offer health care education resources to middle and high school students in Greenville and throughout eastern North Carolina to improve the geographic distribution, retention and quality of health care providers throughout the region.
At this expo, participants from ECU Health, Maynard Children’s Hospital at ECU Health Medical Center, East Carolina University, Wake Tech, Methodist University, the University of North Carolina, Pitt Community College, Carolina Therapy Connection and Wayne Community College displayed tables and spoke with students about health care career paths, both clinical and non-clinical, and gave advise on how to achieve their career goals.
In addition to career insights, students received essential training on identifying overdoses and administering Narcan, a life-saving medication. Dave Schiller, technical operations manager of the clinical simulation program at Brody, hosted the training. ECU Health emergency medicine physicians reinforced the importance of Narcan administration training.
During the training, a standardized patient, trained to mimic real-life scenarios for educational purposes, portrayed a patient experiencing an overdose, complete with simulated pale skin to replicate oxygen deprivation. Students were tasked with assessing vital signs and the patient’s belongings to recognize the overdose scenario. Subsequently, the training staff guided them through the process of administering Narcan.
“Events like these are great opportunities to give students hands-on experience in a safe learning environment to expose them to patient interactions and prepare them for their futures,” said Schiller. “Students learned about exciting career opportunities within the health care field and even worked with a simulated patient without causing harm with health care professionals guiding them through a scenario.”
By immersing students in practical training sessions and exposing them to a spectrum of health care careers, events like these expose students to careers they have never thought of and help develop a future workforce in eastern North Carolina.
ECU Health and Conetoe Family Life Center hosted a Food is Medicine event at the Pinetops Community Center on May 1, to bring fresh produce and health screenings to the community. The initiative aims to bridge the gap in health care access and nutritional resources by providing essential services directly to the community.
Every Wednesday from 3 to 5 p.m. the Conetoe Family Life Center brings its bus of fresh produce for community members to receive free fresh produce. Paired with health screenings provided by the ECU Health team, this creates a reliable and accessible avenue for residents to prioritize their health needs.
Nurses from ECU Health provided vital health screenings to attendees. These screenings included measuring blood pressures, blood sugars and A1C levels, crucial metrics for assessing overall health. ECU Health team members engaged in meaningful conversations with community members, offering personalized insights and guidance on maintaining and improving their well-being.
“Our overall goal is to touch the lives of our community members and improve how they feel about their overall health and well-being,” said Madison Stevens, an administrative fellow at ECU Health. “Rural areas like eastern North Carolina often lack health care resources and access to healthy and fresh foods. With Food is Medicine, we want to address the root causes of health disparities and empower individuals to make informed choices about their health.”
The program is funded by a grant from The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, and ECU Health completes surveys with attendees to collect data from these events to measure how community members feel about their overall health from the start to the end of the program, if they are spending less money at the grocery store, making recipes they receive from the Food is Medicine event and feel in control of their health.
“We also recognize the importance of access to health care services beyond events like these,” said Rob Zerniak, an administrative fellow at ECU Health. “We are actively connecting attendees with resources to become insured and connecting them with primary care providers, ensuring that the benefits of the Food is Medicine initiative extend far beyond the event itself.”
Since November 5, 2023, this partnership has made an impact on the community, particularly through ECU Health’s primary clinic in Pinetops, which plays a crucial role in understanding the needs of the patients we serve during visits by conducting social determinants of health screenings and guiding them to available resources. The event on Wednesday saw over 50 participants bring home fresh produce like bell peppers, lettuce, carrots, strawberries and onions. For more information about future events, please contact [email protected].
ECU Health EastCare participated in the impactful Prom Promise initiative, engaging students at both Perquimans County High School and Richlands High School on April 23 and 24, respectively. The objective was clear: to dissuade teens from driving under the influence during prom season through vivid reenactments of motor vehicle accidents.
Before the re-enactment, students were presented with facts about the dangers of drinking and driving. According to Prom Promise’s founding organization The Prevention Network, one-third of all teen deaths occur in alcohol-related collisions between April and June, and nearly 41% of teens ages 16-19 are likely to drink or use drugs during or after prom.
Chuck Strickland, EastCare’s outreach coordinator at ECU Health, expressed the initiative’s goal of leaving a lasting impression on students, steering them away from driving under any form of impairment.
The events featured realistic depictions of crashed vehicles, complete with students portraying injuries resulting from the collisions. The students witnessed the arrival of first responders who initiated care and extricated individuals with the Jaws of Life, a tool used by emergency rescue personnel to assist in the extrication of victims involved in vehicle accidents. An EastCare helicopter landed on the scene as part of the demonstration, underscoring the importance of quick response required in such emergencies.
“I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to our local first responders for their invaluable partnership and unwavering dedication in making our DWI reenactment crash demonstration a success,” said Steve Clarke, principal, Richlands High School. “Their professionalism, expertise and commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of our students and community are truly commendable. We are grateful for their continued support and collaboration in our efforts to educate and empower our students to make responsible choices and prioritize safety at all times.”
Through collaborative efforts and a commitment to education, ECU Health and its partners aspire to instill responsible decision-making and prioritize safety among students – not only during prom season but throughout their lives.
ECU Health leaders, in association with Triangle Healthcare Executives’ Forum of North Carolina, recently hosted a C-Suite Round Table to discuss everything from workforce development to artificial intelligence in health care.
ECU Health Chief Operating Officer Brian Floyd, Chief Clinical Officer and Chief Quality Officer Dr. Niti Armistead, Chief Nursing Executive Trish Baise and Chief Strategy Officer Todd Hickey served on the panel for the discussion while ECU Health Beaufort Hospital President Dennis Campbell II moderated the event.
Floyd said the COVID-19 pandemic and the years that have followed created many financial challenges in health care, especially for rural hospitals and health systems like ECU Health, which already operated on thin margins.
“Most things cost less to operate in a more rural environment, except health care,” Floyd said. “By the sheer nature of us having to spread our resources so far around communities that are less densely populated, we are perfectly designed to cost more to operate than a health system of similar size in an urban environment.”
He said these circumstances made the ECU Health system come together to design improvements that help create efficiencies within the system to better serve team members, patients and families.
Talent and workforce development is a key piece to creating a more sustainable model of delivering health care in a rural community like eastern North Carolina. Baise said it’s been crucial to connect with team members and potential team members in different ways to recruit and develop high-quality nurses for the region.
“When we’re looking at cost savings, recruitment and internal programs to develop team members is a big part of that. We’re constantly evolving and looking at things differently,” Baise said. “We’re not a large metropolitan area, we don’t have significant population growth so we have to grow our own. That means academic partnerships, ensuring that we’re creating an environment that the students we’re working with will appreciate. On the back end, that also means making investments in our nurses.”
She said at the height of nurses leaving health care across the country, ECU Health experienced a 23% turnover rate of registered nurses. Thanks to the investment the system has made in nursing, the turnover rate is down to 12.6%. The investment from the system in nursing, Baise said, has gone beyond a financial investment but also includes capturing the voice of nurses, professional development and overall culture improvement.
Innovation has been a hallmark of the ECU Health story. Dr. Armistead noted that when the health system re-branded to ECU Health on Jan. 1, 2022, health care was in the midst of the Omicron variant surge from the pandemic. Dr. Armistead noted this was the most difficult month of the pandemic, one that took a toll on the health care workers tasked with treating large volumes of critically ill patients.
Through this, though, Dr. Armistead said the system has grown into an exciting, vibrant place with positivity that’s working to improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina.
“Aligned with our mission, we’re very community focused,” Dr. Armistead said. “That’s how we got through the pandemic, was with very strong community partnerships. Now, we’re shifting the focus of those partnerships to deal with our other challenge, which is the heavy burden of chronic disease in the region. We’re being very tactical and I’m so proud of what we’re able to do as ECU Health.”
Hickey said the work that he is most proud of is the health system’s outreach to the vulnerable populations in the 29-county region ECU Health serves.
In an area with a myriad of challenges in social determinants of health – highlighted by the fact that 21 of the 29 counties ECU Health serves are considered Tier 1 counties on the social vulnerabilities index – Hickey said partnerships make all the difference in making connections and helping community members access health care.
“Understanding that the biggest indicator of health outcomes is transportation, being able to get to an appointment, access to food, those things that we know have a much greater impact on someone’s health and health status is crucial,” Hickey said. “So we put a system in place in our community hospitals and we deliver on the promise of ensuring that we are meeting our patients where they are. I really think COVID helped drive that home in a different way, too.”
Hickey also said initiatives like the Community Health Needs Assessment are important avenues for patients to provide feedback to the health system.
The Round Table brought together leaders from around the state to hear from ECU Health and gain insight on how they are looking at shaping the future of rural health care in eastern North Carolina.
Recently, local middle school students had the opportunity to visit ECU Health Medical Center and learn about careers in the health care industry.
Grow Local, sponsored by Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce, started in 2018 and is designed to create and unveil career interests, grow the talent pipeline, and connect local businesses to future team members, according to the Chamber.
During the students’ trip to the Medical Center, they visited pharmacies and clinical labs across the hospital, took a tour of the Operations Center, and learned about the role of Organization and Leadership Development.
Nancy Turner, workforce development consultant at ECU Health, said connecting with local students is crucial to let them know of career opportunities available across the health system.
“These events are fantastic for a number of reasons,” Turner said. “For students that aren’t sure of what career path they might be interested in, it’s an opportunity to introduce a new idea and give them some options. For those interested in a career in health care, it’s a chance for us to make that connection for them early. We’re just grateful to have such great community partnerships that allow us to have these opportunities.”
In the Cancer Care Laboratory, students had a chance for a hands-on learning experience as they worked on putting together mock IV medication bags. Laboratory team members walked the students through the process and helped show them a bit of what they do on a daily basis.
Turner said it was exciting to see the students engaging with team members and learning how different team members help patients heal.
“These are things they’re not going to see every day,” Turner said. “It’s a really unique experience to talk to a lab technician, see them in their environment and get to try out part of their job. Having team members willing to take time out of their day and pour into our next generation of the workforce for a few minutes might not seem like much but it could create a passion and career path for a student.”
Another set of students headed to the Operations Center at ECU Health Medical Center, where they learned about the many career options supported throughout the health system, whether at the bedside or out in the community. From Nursing and Pharmacy to Information Technology, Food and Nutrition Services, and more, ECU Health supports community members from a variety of careers.
In the Operations Center, Jacob Parrish, vice president of Capacity and Throughput at ECU Health Medical Center, showed students how a team manages patient movement through a 974-bed hospital.
“As someone who is non-clinical, I think it’s great to show the students that there are careers that are super important to running a hospital that aren’t directly patient facing,” Parrish said. “I think it’s vital to help develop that next generation of folks who are going to serve eastern North Carolina, whether it’s as a care team member or as a support team member. I’m just glad to be a part of this event and if we helped one student realize that they may be interested in a career in health care today, then that’s a great thing.”
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While the East Carolina University (ECU) baseball team is rounding into form as postseason play nears, they’re also taking time out to make a special difference in their community.
After a visit to ECU Health Medical Center last November, as part of a career shadowing opportunity, senior first baseman Carter Cunningham felt compelled to do something to help patients and families.
“I’d been praying for ways to give back to the community,” Cunningham said. “As we’re doing a tour of the entire campus, we walked into the [Maynard] Children’s Hospital and it was like God had smacked me in the face. It was like, this is what I have to do. I didn’t know what it would look like yet, though.”
He said that week, he went back to the team and asked for a small donation from everyone to spread some holiday cheer to patients and families at the children’s hospital. The response was more than he expected.
“We got about $500 and we were able to drop off some presents to the children’s hospital right before break,” he said. “It was awesome. We had about 20 players come in and we hung out in the playroom and had a great time.”
Tara Tadlock, a child life specialist at Maynard Children’s Hospital, said patients and families would subsequently talk about the visit for the next month. The same held true for Cunningham and his teammates, who also went on talking about how special the visit felt.
He said over the Christmas break he took more time to think about what he could do to make an impact for patients and families like those he’d met a few weeks before. Then the idea to start a foundation, Homers That Help, came to him.
It started with a call for donations on social media, one sponsor for each of ECU’s 33 home baseball games in 2024. The sponsor makes an up-front donation to the fund and an additional donation for each home run hit during the game. While he expected to need some time and make some calls to fill every game, the fund was complete after about 15 hours.
“The community here, I can’t describe it,” Cunningham said. “I get goosebumps talking about it because they’re so generous and so supportive, not only of ECU athletics, but the whole community. It was a testament to all the people that are here and I’m thankful and blessed to have an opportunity to be here.”
Because of the outpouring of support, Cunningham opened a “Fund B” for those who were not able to directly sponsor a game but still wanted make a donation. Cunningham is making donations himself as well, contributing $25 to the fund for each of his own home runs. With nine home runs, Cunningham is tied for the team lead and backing up his own efforts.
Along with the funds, which Cunningham and Tadlock recently started to distribute to patients and families, Cunningham and his teammates are continuing to make bi-weekly visits to the Maynard Children’s Hospital. He said taking a step back to give time to others is important to him.
“As a Division I athlete, you get so caught up in the games and practices, the wins, the losses, but every other Monday it’s just eye-opening,” he said. “I’ll never forget one patient, the day before we went to play Campbell, he said, ‘Have fun at your game tomorrow.’ It was so refreshing and offered great perspective. It’s way bigger than baseball. These visits are the best part of my week every time I visit.”
Tadlock said the program has been a great benefit for everyone involved and she’s looking forward to its continued success.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time with scheduling our visitors and working in Child Life and these visits are a bright spot of our month, too. It’s great to see the patients and families so excited, seeing the guys so excited and knowing that they’re making a difference for our patients is huge,” Tadlock said. “Some of the kids that are here are going through really hard stuff and finding out hard news. If they’re able to leave that behind for a few minutes and hang out with the ECU baseball team, it’s really important to try to create those special moments. All we want to do in Child Life is provide some normal experiences for the children. Working with this team has been amazing.”
Though this is Cunningham’s last year at ECU, he said the plan is for Homers That Help to carry on. He’s looking to younger members of the team to pick up the torch and build upon the positive momentum the foundation has today.
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Greenville, N.C. – ECU Health is seeking feedback from community members throughout eastern North Carolina on its current Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). The feedback from the CHNA allows the health system to understand what community members see as the most important health issues affecting their communities.
Every three years, ECU Health conducts this comprehensive assessment to provide the foundation for improving and promoting good health in eastern North Carolina region. By soliciting feedback directly from the community, ECU Health can better tailor efforts to promote wellness and address critical health challenges.
ECU Health encourages all community members age 15 and older to complete the CHNA survey and provide meaningful feedback on how ECU Health can continue to improve health and well-being in eastern North Carolina.
The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete and all responses are confidential. Your feedback helps ensure health care needs are met in the 29 counties ECU Health serves. The survey is open through June 7, 2024.
The CHNA process involves comprehensive data collection and analysis, including demographic, socioeconomic, and health-related statistics. However, the most valuable insights come directly from community members themselves. The completed CHNA analysis and results serve as the basis for prioritizing strategies to meet the community’s health needs in order to improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina.
The survey is in both English and Spanish and can be found at ECUHealth.org/CHNA.
The American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation’s (AACVPR) Day on the Hill, which was March 4-5 this year, is an opportunity for cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation professionals to visit Washington, D.C. to advocate for their profession and ask legislators for support for beneficial legislation on Medicare decisions. It was Stacey Greenway’s 10th year participating in this event, a milestone made all the more significant by her recent election as treasurer to the AACVPR board.
Stacey, the director of cardiovascular disease management services at ECU Health Medical Center, wasn’t initially interested in health care policy, but her zeal for her work inspired her to get involved.
“I’m passionate about what I do, and when I realized the impact these legislative decisions make on our patients, I wanted to get involved,” she said. “When the North Carolina Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Association (NCCRA), which works on the state level, asked if anyone was interested in participating in Day on the Hill, I thought how cool it would be to help our patients and our programs. After the first time, I was hooked.”
Each year, the AACVPR’s legislative priorities are different, but the goal is the same. “We want to help the legislators see things from the patient perspective and put a face to the people these bills are affecting,” Stacey said. “From that angle, you see the increase in a patient’s quality of life. From a health system perspective, it decreases the rates of hospital readmission. It’s a win-win.”
This year’s priorities centered on two bills: HR-955/S.1849, the Sustaining Outpatient Services Act, and HR-1406/S.3021, the Sustainable Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Services in the Home Act. The Sustaining Outpatient Services Act seeks to correct a legislative error from a previous bill that reduces reimbursement for cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation services when they are provided in off-hospital campus clinics. The reduced reimbursement rate makes cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation services financially unsustainable and thus eliminates patient access to these resources, especially in rural communities. “Some rural hospitals, which don’t have a lot of real estate on campus, haven’t even tried to open a rehab clinic because of this issue,” Stacey said. This bill would establish an exemption status to certain hospital outpatient services, including cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation, from that fee reduction.
The Sustainable Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Services in the Home Act would allow Medicare beneficiaries to receive cardiac or pulmonary rehabilitation services through real-time telehealth in their homes. This hybrid type of service was very successful during the pandemic, and it allowed more patients to be treated from across eastern North Carolina.
“Think of that 45-year-old patient who had a heart attack and would benefit from rehab services but has also been cleared to work and needs to make an income,” Stacey explained. “This bill would allow that patient to not have to make a choice between income and health; they could do both.”
During her time in Washington, D.C., Stacey and 74 other AACVPR members spoke with their respective House Representatives and Senators to advocate for these bills. Stacey said overall, the discussions were productive.
“I had some good conversations about both bills,” she said. “The telehealth bill was one the legislators could wrap their heads around easier; it was something they were familiar with. That was encouraging.” While more work needs to be done to increase support for the outpatient services bill, Stacey said she felt the needle moved a bit. “This is partly because the government seems to be changing their focus from thinking about the up-front costs of health care to the savings incurred on the back end,” Stacey said. “That means things are changing, and I’m hoping we’ll get a few more co-signatures on that bill.”
As a board member, Stacey said she now has other opportunities to support her profession.
“To represent eastern North Carolina and discuss at the national level some of the things that impact those who practice locally is really important,” she said. Because she was on the board this year, Stacey was also able join the board meeting the day before Day on the Hill and participate in the selection of a new legislative firm. “We met with the firm and prepped for Day on the Hill, but we also strategically planned for the future,” Stacey said. “It was exciting to be involved in that process.”
Stacey’s interest in running for the AACVPR’s treasurer position stemmed from her desire to stay involved in the national organization and escalating care for patients.
“The board is involved in regulatory and government relations, and that’s one of my big interests. Day on the Hill is just one way we stay involved. It’s a way of understanding and supporting initiatives and bringing that back to ECU Health,” she said. “We have six cardiac and pulmonary rehab programs within ECU Health, and I want to make sure those programs are aware of the initiatives the AACVPR promotes to escalate their practice and ensure we’re doing the best we can for our patients.”
Now that the initial conversations with Congress members are over, the next step is to follow up in a few weeks with those representatives still on the fence. “We’ll also bring in a constituent from that person’s district to speak to the impact of these bills,” Stacey said. Some representatives have already signed on to at least one of the bills, including Rep. Don Davis, Rep. Deborah Ross, Rep. Greg Murphy, Rep. Wiley Nickel and Rep. Jeff Jackson.
It’s important to be involved in the policy issues surrounding health care, Stacey said. “You don’t go into health care thinking about these operational or political issues, but when you’re faced with the repercussions in the clinic, you see the impact it has.”
She encouraged all health care professionals to get involved: “Let’s do this for the betterment of the patient experience,” she said. “For me, this has been one of the highlights of my professional life.”