Sangre de Cristo Taps New CEO, YoloCares Names Palliative Care Director

New CEO Takes Reigns at Sangre de Cristo Community Care

Colorado-based Sangre de Cristo Community Care named Melinda Egging as its new CEO.

Egging will oversee operations of the hospice, home health and palliative care organization. This marks her return to the organization.

She served as director of compliance for Sangre de Cristo Hospice & Palliative Care from 2001 to 2009. Egging performed various other roles in performance improvement and volunteer oversight before her ascension to Sangre’s helm.

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“I am so thrilled to be part of Sangre de Cristo Community Care, a wonderful nonprofit organization that has always been dear to me,” Egging told local news. “It is a privilege to return to Pueblo to serve both urban and rural communities.”

In addition to its main office and hospice house in Pueblo, Colorado, Sangre de Cristo operates four locations across a 20,000-square-mile area in the state’s southern region. The organization is an affiliate of the Home Care and Hospice Association of Colorado, a group of nonprofit providers that care for patients and families across 64 counties in the state.

Egging has served as president of The Denver Hospice since 2009, where she led health information management, quality and compliance departments.

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In 2015 she was promoted to vice president of quality, corporate compliance and risk management at Care Synergy, a network of regional nonprofit hospice providers. The Denver Hospice is part of the network, along with the Colorado Visiting Nurse Association (CVNA), Optio Health Services, Pathways Hospice and Pikes Peak Hospice and Palliative Care.

YoloCares Names Director of Palliative Care

California-based YoloCares has named Lisa Adams as director of palliative care and patient access.

In addition to hospice and palliative care, YoloCares also offers adult day services and operates caregiver and bereavement support centers.

Adams began working part-time at YoloCares in 1998 as a medical records filing clerk, eventually taking on full-time roles in administration, patient access management, volunteer and bereavement departments.

“After 21 years of watching the agency evolve, adapt, and grow, I feel like I’m ready to take an active role in leading YoloCares,” Adams said in an announcement. “It [is] an excellent opportunity for growth and I wanted to continue to grow with the agency.”

YoloCares is among the nonprofit hospices that make up the California Hospice Network, joining the coalition last year. The network is designed to support providers’ ability to grow and sustain community-based hospice care and leverage their collective scale and resources in value-based payment programs.

Adams intends to focus on sustaining YoloCares’ palliative care program in part by growing its base of billing and payer contracts, which would allow for the expansion of these services to a wider community, the company indicated.

Angelic Health Makes Clinical Hospice Leadership Moves

Angelic Health has announced Tina Ellis as its new director of clinical services for hospice care.

In addition to hospice, Angelic Health provides palliative and memory care, as well as telehealth services. The health system operates three offices in New Jersey, as well as office locations in South Carolina and Pennsylvania.

“We are honored to welcome Tina to Angelic Health,” Angelic CEO Dan Mikus told local news. “Her experience and dedication to quality patient care will uphold the standards of service to our hospice patients and their families.”

Ellis will oversee the health system’s regional hospice services in three counties across the state. She joins Angelic Health with a clinical background in critical and serious illness care.

“It was a natural transition for me to move into hospice. As a clinical leader in hospice care, I am blessed to be able to help my team create the most caring and compassionate environment possible for our patients,” Ellis told local news.

Our Lady of Peace Appoints New CEO

Our Lady of Peace Hospice and Home Health Care has tapped Jeff Thorne as its new CEO following the retirement of Joe Stanislav after 32 years of service.

The nonprofit has provided home health and hospice services in St. Paul, Minnesota, for more than 80 years. Our Lady of Peace (OLP) was established by the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne to provide free care for terminally ill cancer patients who lacked financial and caregiving support.

The organization operates a 21-bed inpatient hospice center, which is under current renovation to expand with additional private rooms, as well as in-home hospice care and home health care services.

Thorne was most recently the regional vice president of health care at Virginia-based Volunteers of America. Prior to that, he served as vice president of operations at St. Therese Hospitals and Health Care, which provides senior living care across the Twin City metropolitan area in Minnesota.

Thorne told local news that Our Lady of Peace’s legacy of care “is just incredible” and that he is “absolutely committed” to continuing it.

“I come into this (role) very humbly and I’m thrilled to join OLP,” Thorne said.

Careficient’s VP Heads Hospice Growth

Electronic medical record (EMR) company Careficient Inc., has appointed Denise Watson as its vice president of hospice services.

Watson is charged with overseeing Careficient’s growing network of hospice clients. She comes to the company with roughly 28 years of experience in hospice and palliative care. Watson was most recently CEO and executive director at Mountain Valley Hospice & Palliative Care, serving in the role since 1994. She led the organization’s development and operation of two hospice inpatient facilities and its expanded services into home-based palliative care, among other programs.

“Denise brings first-hand experience to the table and an acute understanding of the challenges facing CEOs in our industry today,” Careficient COO Brad Caldwell said in an announcement. “She will be a significant asset to all of our hospice customers and prospects. Her 25 plus years as a hospice CEO is going to change the game for Careficient. More importantly, it will help us support the future of the industry. The hospice industry is evolving so quickly; staying ahead of the changes is critical to our success and the success of our customers.”

Careficient has been on a growth trajectory to help hospice and palliative care providers keep up with growing demand for their services. The EMR firm earlier this month acquired Net Health’s hospice, home health, home care and palliative care business, as well as its revenue cycle monitoring (RCM) prospects. Net Health, an EMR and analytics firm, divested its HealthWyse, Hospicesoft and RCM division to refocus on its core rehab therapy and wound care lines.

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