REGIONAL UPDATES

REGIONAL UPDATES HCS Highlights | Winter 2019

UPDATES FROM REGION 1

We have a lot of great things happening in our region! One exciting thing is the Assistive Technology Pilot being led by Elizabeth Adams, HQ Outcome Improvement Specialist. We have 20 In-home/Residential Case Managers in our Spokane office participating. Our partners in this pilot are 20 Case Managers from Aging and Long Term Care Eastern Washington, Georgia Institute of Technology, Washington Assistive Technology Act Program and HQ ALTSA/HCS leadership.

Tami Rucker Region 1 Regional Administrator

The intent of this pilot is to determine if Assistive Technology services are needed/desired by at least a segment of the client population, identify barriers to services usage, develop strategies to address these barriers, develop methods for engaging staff to use services and develop strategies to communicate service options directly to clients. Stay tuned for the report out as the pilot will end December 2019.

UPDATES FROM REGION 2

I am proud of Region 2 staff. They work hard and live up to the expectations of transforming lives. My Public Benefits Specialist (PBS) staff are truly rocking financial by continuing to get high praise for having valid delay reason codes entered on every pending application that is over 45 days old. Kudos to them. PBS’s continue to be understaffed but it has not deterred them from doing great work and meeting expectations.

Sonya Sanders Region 2 Regional Administrator

Region 2 has had several nursing home closures as well. The nursing home groups have pulled together to relocate clients to appropriate settings. No matter the challenge, Region 2 employees will pull together. I can’t ask for anything more.

UPDATES FROM REGION 3

Debbie Willis Region 3 Regional Administrator

Who doesn’t want to have an awesome workplace culture? I think we all do. I also believe it is something that we have to be intentional about. Most of the time it doesn’t just happen. In Region 3 HCS we have gat hered our culture champions from each office to set our intentions on creating an awesome culture and we have begun to meet regularly to work towards this goal.

One of the fun a ctivities we are implementing is a 21-day cha llenge of NO COMPLAINING! That means no complaining (a bout anything) for 21 days and every time you complain, you go back to day one!

Kara Sells, our Deputy Regional Administrator, and I were the first to try this out! Well, the first thing I learned: This is WAY harder than it sounds! We eventually reached our 21 days, although it took about 2 months after multiple starts back to day one! But even so, we now have some adventurous souls in our offices that are willing to give it a try!

Just think what a better workplace we would have if we reframed our complaints to more positive expressions! Look for what is good, what is working, what is positive instead of the negative. Positivity is contagious, just like negativity. Jane Goodall said, “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” Let’s choose to make a positive difference.

For more on the no-complaining challenge and how you can participate, see page 14.