Commentary: Investing in what matters

By Adrianne Johnson Ross, MHA

After many years of working to advance health care delivery on a number of various fronts, I accepted the opportunity to join The University of Vermont Health Network about a year ago, looking for a role where I could make a profound difference in people’s lives. I have found an organization and a can-do culture within the Network and its home health and hospice agency, where I am surrounded by kindred spirits, even though we may have come from vastly different places.

As an African American woman and a proud descendant of slaves who grew up in the public housing projects of Murchison Terrace in Orlando, Fla., my parents worked tirelessly to raise my three siblings and me and to create a better life for our family.  My father went to school on the GI Bill after serving in Vietnam. He first became a registered respiratory therapist then went on to become one of the first African American businessmen in our community after he founded his own durable medical equipment company. My mother became a licensed practical nurse and worked in the same hospital my father did in Orlando’s Mercy Hospital. It is from them that I developed my core values of hard work, commitment and discipline.

‘Why I chose to move here’

Today, I have the honor of serving in a unique role as president and chief operating officer of UVM Health Network – Home Health & Hospice, one of eight organizations across Vermont and Northern New York that have come together as a health network to serve our communities through an integrated system of care. Not all health systems invest in community-based services the way UVM Health Network does, and that is why I chose to move here and into this role.

Home Health & Hospice plays a vital role in the delivery of care to residents of Chittenden and Grand Isle counties, and we are working hard today to transform how care will be delivered in the future. Through our services, we are able to reduce hospital admissions by meeting the unique medical needs of people in our communities by providing high quality care in the home at the lowest cost possible. The future of acute care in the home setting is bright. Our staff come to your home to care for you and your loved ones when you are most vulnerable. In addition, our Community Hospice team provides end-of-life care in the home and in our inpatient unit, the McClure Miller Respite House. We also provide a safe environment for seniors at our Adult Day program in South Burlington. The fact that a Home Health & Hospice agency is an integral part of a health system is reflective of how the health care delivery system is changing. We believe the future of health care will increasingly be in the home.

‘We are at a crossroads’

While Home Health & Hospice benefits as part of an academic rural health system, we – like home health and hospice agencies across the country, and especially in Vermont – survive on the slimmest of margins as we provide a range of services at all stages of life. It is thanks to the generous support and donations from our local communities, business owners and neighbors that we are able to provide millions of dollars of charitable care every year.

Today, however, we are at a crossroads. Significant workforce challenges are creating real barriers and compromising our ability to serve our communities in the ways people deserve.

For my organization, it is a double whammy: government payers are the largest source of reimbursement for key community services, and they are covering less and less of the actual costs of providing that care, while the labor crisis enveloping our country is making it harder and more costly to retain top talent. Add on an aging population here in Vermont and an increased demand for services, and you could understand why some people would give up in the face of this complexity. Giving up is not in my DNA, nor in the DNA of the remarkable, hard-working frontline staff at Home Health & Hospice.

‘What matters most: our people’

For us to be able to continue to advance our mission and support people in the spaces they feel most comfortable – wherever they call home – we need to get even more creative and innovative in our work to attract and retain the best people, and we also need to make sure that our health care workforce is paid fairly for the work they do, at a rate that supports them and their families. While there are many tremendous benefits to being a partner in transformation within the UVM Health Network, at the end of the day, Home Health & Hospice must be sustainable on its own.

My take on this is simple and straightforward: if we provide services to Vermonters that they and their elected officials value, then we need to be funded appropriately. We need significant increases in the rates paid by Medicare and Medicaid for the work we do, especially in Vermont’s Choices for Care program.

This work is challenging and worthy, which is precisely why I am so passionate about what we do and the difference we make in the lives of Vermonters. It is my hope that, with the help of our communities and our state’s leaders, we will come together and invest in what matters most: our people.

About the author:

Adrianne Johnson Ross, MHA, has served as president and chief operating officer for The University of Vermont Health Network – Home Health & Hospice since December 2020. Previously, she served as interim CEO for Pheno Health Technologies, Inc., in Minneapolis, where she oversaw a $370 million multi-clinic operations budget and team of 250.  

Johnson Ross, a native of Orlando, Fla., earned a master’s degree in health administration from The George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in industrial organizational psychology from Georgia State University. 

“I believe home health is central to the future of health care delivery,” Johnson Ross says.