International “What Matters to You?” Day Celebration Webinar

We’ve encouraged health care providers and patients to have “What matters to you?” conversations each and every day over the past year. On June 6, 2019, International “What Matters to You?” Day, we hosted a webinar to celebrate the genuine partnerships these conversations helped form!

On the webinar, Joan Chaya and Damara Gutnick from New York’s Montefiore Hudson Valley Collaborative talked about how the organization championed the spread of “What Matters to You?” across a vast provider network in the state. They also spoke about the relationship between “What Matters to You?” and joy at work, and how asking the question affects the patient experience.

Speakers:

Joan Chaya
Joan Chaya is the Senior Director of Workforce Development & Management at the Montefiore Hudson Valley Collaborative. She has been working in health care management for over 25 years specializing in organizational effectiveness, change management, future directed process improvement, compassionate strategic workforce planning, competency development, staff engagement, and joy in work. Her work has been focused on the people side of change and the linkages between joy in work and supporting and developing staff to provide patient-centred care that addresses the social determinants of health.

During her career Joan has developed strategic workforce practices to address turnover and vacancy rates, employee engagement, changes in care delivery and roles, and newly defined health care competencies. She has a master’s degree in Human Behavior and Organizational Psychology from Kean University and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Montclair State University, and is a certified HR senior certified professional with the Society for Human Resource Management and a certified Prosci change practitioner.

Damara Gutnick
Damara is the Medical Director of the Montefiore Hudson Valley Collaborative, an Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Population Health and Psychiatry & Behavioral Health at the Albert Einstein SOM, Director of Quality at the Centre for Collaboration, Motivation & Innovation and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT). An internist by training, she is keenly aware of the challenges associated with providing quality care at the front lines, and passionate about incorporating Motivational Interviewing, Shared Decision Making and the patient voice into the health care delivery system to improve patient engagement and outcomes.

Damara has presented workshops at state, national and international forums including The IHI, ACP, SGIM, APA and the MINT Forum.  She is also a co-developer of Brief Action Planning; a self-management support technique that involves using a structured step-by-step process to help individuals set goals and make concrete action plans. In her role, she is responsible for guiding systems and practice transformation efforts to support the transition to value based payment across the Hudson Valley as part of New York State’s Deliver System Redesign Incentive Payment program.