CAREER PULSE – January 2018

Mercy Names Marthone Chief Nursing Officer

SPRINGFIELD — Frances Gomes Marthone has been named chief Nursing officer (vice president of Patient Care Services) for Mercy Medical Center. In this role, she is responsible for ensuring compliance with patient-care quality standards and ensuring that clinical and staffing standards are met, promoting best practices in nursing and patient care, and serving as a liaison for communication between leadership and the nursing staff.

With more than 25 years of nursing-leadership experience, Marthone most recently served as chief Nursing officer and vice president of Patient Care Services at Piedmont Henry Hospital, a 215-bed facility in Stockbridge, Ga., where she was responsible for the coordination and monitoring of all nursing standards. Prior to that role, she served as vice president of Medical Services at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga., where she provided leadership in recruitment, retention, development, and continuing education for all units within the medical division. She also has experience as an administrative supervisor, as well as a background in the management of oncology-nursing services. 

Marthone holds a Ph.D. in nursing philosophy from Georgia State University in Atlanta, a master’s degree in nursing administration from Albany State University in Albany, Ga., and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Simmons College in Boston. She also holds a quality and process improvement certification in Black Belt from the Stetson School of Business and Economics at Mercer University in Georgia. She is a member the American Organization of Nurse Executives, the American Nurses Assoc., the Georgia Nurses Assoc., and the American College of Healthcare Executives.

 

VA Central Western Massachusetts Appoints McMahon to New Role

LEEDS — Former Chief Financial Officer Andrew McMahon has been named the new associate director of VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System.

McMahon, who first joined the VA in 2011 in the finance office in Leeds, was later promoted to chief financial officer in 2013. He was instrumental in the realignment of VA clinics in Worcester and Fitchburg from Boston to VACWM, which resulted in a 45{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} increase in patients.

McMahon has guided the facility through an unprecedented growth period of more than 200 additional employees in the last three years, contributing more than $100 million to the local economy in salaries. Through his stewardship over eight sites of care and more than 1,000 employees, VACWM’s economic impact exceeds $150 million, including $30 million in care coordinated with medical professionals in the community, and $20 million in ongoing construction projects.

Moving forward, in his new role as associate director, McMahon will seek to expand on investing in the facility’s infrastructure.

“We’re here to serve America’s veterans, and we work hard to be a world-class healthcare provider, and to be a good neighbor to the community through our many partnerships,” he said.

McMahon holds a master’s degree in management from Boston University, and he is pursuing an additional master’s degree in public health administration from UMass Amherst. Additionally, he currently serves as a budget officer in the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

 

Yarasani Joins Baystate Wing Hospital Medical Staff

PALMER — Baystate Wing Hospital announced that Dr. Rama Krishna Yarasani has joined its medical staff and will serve as an adult inpatient psychiatrist. 

Yarasani graduated from Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad, India, completed his psychiatry residency at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Brighton, and received his master’s degree in public health from Eastern Kentucky University. He has served as assistant professor of Psychiatry at Marlborough Hospital and attending psychiatrist at Arbour-Fuller Hospital in Attleboro and Arbour Hospital in Jamaica Plain, and is a member of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. 

“For individuals with mental-health problems who need hospitalization, we provide a safe, nurturing, and therapeutic environment,” said Dr. David Maguire, chief medical officer for the Baystate Mary Lane Outpatient Center and Baystate Wing Hospital. “Dr. Yarasani brings over 12 years of practice in psychiatry to Baystate Wing Hospital. We are delighted to have him join our team providing in-patient care.” 

In addition to inpatient psychiatric care, Baystate Wing Hospital also offers comprehensive, personalized outpatient behavioral-health and substance-use treatment services through the Griswold Behavioral Health Center.

Yarasani joins a practice that currently has four psychiatrists and three advanced practitioners. The team, which also includes licensed therapists, offers a broad range of services, including individual, couples, family, and group therapy; psychiatric assessment and treatment for children, teens, adults, and elders; substance-use counseling; medication-management services; and clinical groups, including an early recovery group and a women’s recovery group.

 

Austen Riggs Center Staff Receive Prestigious Award

STOCKBRIDGE — Donna Elmendorf, Dr. Claudia Gold, and Kate Jewson have been recognized for their work in the Human Development Strategic Initiative, receiving the prestigious Anna Freud Educational Achievement Award from the American Psychoanalytic Assoc. (APsaA) schools committee.

This annual award is presented to a person, school, or educational institution that furthers psychoanalytically informed work with educators, schools, and students in grades pre-K to 12. The prize and the accompanying honorarium will be presented during APsaA’s national meeting in February 2018. Founded in 1911, the American Psychoanalytic Assoc. is the oldest national psychoanalytic organization in the U.S.

In 2016, the Austen Riggs Center launched its Human Development Strategic Initiative, the goal of which is to bring a deep, psychoanalytic understanding of human development to address social problems in Berkshire County. In order to do so, the initiative is working in close partnership with existing community organizations, including the Chapter One initiative of Berkshire United Way, a broad community coalition of practitioners who interface with young children and families.

The program’s first project, the Discovering Your Baby Project, has as its centerpiece deepening the understanding and practice of infant mental health in Berkshire County through the use of the Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) system. The NBO, a clinical adaptation of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) developed by pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, is explicitly designed not as an assessment, but as a relationship-building tool. The NBO is a family-focused intervention that can include mothers, fathers, siblings, and extended family. Thus far, a range of practitioners have been trained, including all maternity nurses at a local hospital (130 to 150 babies delivered each year), who have integrated the NBO into routine care.

According to Elmendorf, director of the Austen Riggs Center Therapeutic Community Program, Activities Program, and Human Development Initiative, “we recognize that the capacity for regulation of attention, behavior, and emotion that is essential for success in school is laid down in the moment-to-moment interactions between infants and their caregivers. All those working together in Berkshire County share a primary task of promoting healthy parent-infant relationships starting at birth.”

Gold, an infant mental health specialist, added, “families from the full range of socioeconomic backgrounds in our community may have struggled with generations of mental illness, substance abuse, or other adverse childhood experiences. As a small rural community, we are able to offer a population-based, rather than risk-based, intervention, normalizing and destigmatizing the challenges of the transition to parenthood.”

 

Greater Holyoke Chamber Honors Loomis House’s Picard

HOLYOKE — The Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce bestowed its Chamber Ambassador of the Year Award to Jessica Picard, marketing director at Loomis House Retirement Community, a position she has held since 2012.

Previous to that, she was the marketing and admissions liaison for Loomis Lakeside at Reeds Landing in Springfield. She graduated from Westfield State University with a degree in business management and a minor in marketing. 

“Our ambassadors play a pivotal role in allowing the Greater Holyoke Chamber to be able to execute on our programs and events. Jessica Picard has been a champion of the Greater Holyoke Chamber for several years, and her service as an ambassador to our chamber members is irreplaceable,” said Wanda Zabawa, events manager and ambassador leader.

Chamber ambassadors are volunteers who make a commitment to help new members feel welcome and demonstrate to all members how to make the most of their chamber benefits. They also gather feedback from members to help the chamber improve its services. Other members of the chamber ambassador committee include Wendy Palmer of PeoplesBank, Julie Rochefort of United Personnel, Paula Auclair and Harry Montalvo of bankESB, Kate Buckley of Goss & McLain Insurance, Susan Concepcion of Homewood Suites, Molly Desrocher of United Personnel, Pauline Gove of deRenzy Document Solutions, James Brunault of Massachusetts Rehabilitation, Daniel Couchon of Fairfield Inn, and Tom Thacher of CareerPoint. 

“Jessica truly deserves the Ambassador of the Year award. Jessica has gone above and beyond her responsibilities as an ambassador toward our members and has demonstrated extraordinary dedication, involvement, and initiative to enhancing the partnership between the chamber and our members,” said Kathleen Anderson, chamber president.

Picard was chosen for the award after receiving the most ambassador points in 2017. Ambassadors earn points by calling and visiting chamber members, attending monthly meetings and ribbon cuttings, recruiting other ambassadors, and participating in chamber events.

Picard and her manager, Margaret Mantoni, will be honored at the chamber’s holiday business breakfast and pop-up retail event on Wednesday, Dec. 13 at the Log Cabin. The public is welcome to attend.

 

Glenmeadow Welcomes New Board Members

LONGMEADOW — At Glenmeadow’s annual meeting in November, attorney David Carlson, chair of the nonprofit’s governance committee, announced three new members of the Glenmeadow board of directors and five new corporators.

Naren Dhamodharan, John Gallup, and Annette Lerner will now join the board, while Mark Cress, Christopher Gill, Marie Stebbins, and Julie Siciliano have retired from service.

The new members join Paul Nicholson, Dusty Hoyt, Crystal Diamond, Lawrence Bernstein, David Carlson, Dennis Fitzpatrick, Richard Goldstein, Jerome Gurland, Susan Megas, Amy Santarelli, and Norman Smith on the panel. New officers, also elected at the annual meeting, are Hoyt, chair; Fitzpatrick, vice chair; Smith, clerk; and Santarelli, treasurer.

New corporators are Paul Barden, Sean Anderson, Leslie Smith Frank, Jackie Quimby, and Elaine Tourtelotte. Glenmeadow is a nonprofit organization, and corporators are its legal entity, empowered to elect board members and to amend the bylaws. Corporators also support the mission of Glenmeadow by serving as ambassadors.

Dhamodharan has extensive experience in affordable housing for elders, specifically in developing assisted living. Prior to establishing Hampden Park Capital & Consulting in Northborough, for which he is president, he was director of Housing and Supportive Services at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs. Under his direction, the office developed a successful, affordable assisted-living model in existing elderly-housing communities.

Gallup retired as president and CEO of Westfield’s Strathmore Paper Co. in 1992. He was involved in different capacities with Baystate Medical Center and the Baystate Health Foundation, serving on the foundation’s President’s Society. He won the National Conference for Community and Justice’s Human Relations Award along his wife, Paula. Currently, he is a charter trustee with the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts and is involved with the Willie Ross School for the Deaf.

Lerner brings leadership skills from her experience as vice president of a publishing company and stock-photo agency in New York City for 12 years. She was also president of a women’s organization at her temple and an active member of a parent-teacher association when her children were young. Since moving to Glenmeadow from Florida a year and a half ago, she has been an active member of the community, working in the Glenmeadow store, developing relationships, and volunteering with fund-raisers.

 

Clinical & Support Options Honors Employees at Event

NORTHAMPTON — Clinical & Support Options Inc. presented its outstanding-employee service awards at its annual staff-appreciation and holiday event on Dec. 1. These awards are presented annually to recognize the exemplary contributions made by employees in the course of their work. CSO employs nearly 700 individuals, and provides programs throughout Hampshire, Hampden, and Franklin counties.

The honorees included: Exemplary Direct Service: John Kirk, family support worker, Greenfield; Outstanding Commitment to Recovery: Devin Donohoe, peer program supervisor, Northampton; Exemplary Administrative Support: Nellie Rodriguez, office manager and third-party operations manager, Springfield; Outstanding Leadership: Paula Spivey, clinical supervisor, Gardner; Agency Morale/Spirit: Chase Giroux, ICC supervisor, Northampton; Community Service Leadership: Agnes Browne, psychologist, Northampton; Exemplary Team: Men’s Shelter Staff, Friends of the Homeless, Springfield; and President’s Award: business systems team (Jessica Charette-Fallon and Tyler Besse).