New England Life Care

At New England Life Care, patients come first.

In honor of National Nurses Week, it is our tremendous privilege, on behalf of NELC, our Board of Directors and our patients, to express our deepest gratitude to our NELC Nurses, our nursing colleagues, for all that you do to make a difference every day in the lives of our patients, their families and loved ones, and the communities that we serve. Nursing is the most trusted profession; you serve as a beacon of hope and a source of comfort. You are the backbone of healthcare as you use your skills and knowledge to practice at the highest level of nursing. You put patients first by advocating for them, understanding them, listening to them, and treating every patient in your care with compassion. Your incredible and tireless efforts, especially during the most challenging times, deserve the utmost respect and admiration. For all this and so much more, We cannot thank you enough. We are so proud to call our NELC nurses our colleagues!

Today, Central Maine Healthcare (CMHC) in collaboration with New England Life Care (NELC) together launched an innovative new program, the Care Coordination Resource Center (CCRC), to support our care management team in transitioning infusion patients from hospital to home! The CCRC is a transformative program designed to assist our health system in coordinating infusion discharges with a goal to decrease length of stay (LOS) by improving patient flow management providing time back to our case management team to spend with non-infusion related patients. This program changes the way we think about the role of home infusion by streamlining our process, freeing beds for higher acuity patients and reducing total medical expense. Working alongside the CMHC care management teams, NELC will have onsite staff to manage all home infusion referrals regardless insurance type or home infusion provider. The CCRC model is a progression model, and we look forward to evolving the collaborative program adding proactive patient identification in the near future. This collaboration showcases our commitment to continuous improvement as we provide exceptional patient care.

Recently, we sat down with Clinical Liaison Nurse, Alyson Bottari, RN as part of our Employee Spotlight Series. Here is what she had to share.

Join us in Congratulating Brigham & Women’s Faulkner Hospital (BWFH) for earning Magnet with Distinction status!   During the designation process, the Magnet Appraiser Team sought insights from BWFH’s valued Community Partners. Tim Boudreau, NELC Partnership Development Specialist, presented as a BWH Faulkner Hospital affiliated partner during the community interview session. Tim shared NELC's charitable mission to support patients without insurance or means to pay for services. As a not-for-profit home Infusion therapy company, NELC is driven by our mission to serve our community. NELC works collaboratively with BWFH to enable patients to receive infusion services in the comfort of their homes, enhancing their quality of life while contributing to reducing hospital length of stay.   The Community interview session stood out as a pivotal moment during the site visit!

March 31 to April 6, 2024 is Patient Access Week. NELC thanks our Intake and Care Coordination Resource Center teams who provide empathic, caring and equitable care and service connecting our patients to life sustaining care and treatment in the home.

Congratulations to the winners of our 2023 President’s Award, our Quality Team - Melissa Aubin Pollender and Corrie Michaud! Bob Calway, President & CEO, awarded our 2023 President’s Award to NELC’s Quality Team - Melissa Pollender, Executive Director of Quality, Facilities, Operations & Planning and Corrie Michaud, Quality Analyst! Melissa and Corrie consistently show us their dedication, expertise, and commitment to ensuring the highest standards of quality. From Joint Commission accreditation to management of our occurrence reporting system, to root cause analysis and quality improvement efforts, Melissa and Corrie show attention to detail and a relentless pursuit of excellence. Their efforts have a significant impact on our services and ensure that the meet and exceed our patient’s and member’s expectations!

Congratulations to our 2023 Teammate of the Year Award recipient, Cole Megna! Cole is an Inventory Control Supervisor at our Woburn branch. Here is what his teammates said about him when nominating him for this award: - “Cole has gone far above and beyond in 2023 with the ICS transitions, training and staffing shortages. He is always willing to help any department. He has the motivation and drive to accomplish any task he is given. He is one of the most positive and respectful employees I have ever worked with." - “Cole is the most efficient worker I know here at NELC. Always busy and caring for our needs. Whenever asked to help out with something, he does it as soon as it is requested. I never have to ask twice for things to be done. He is always on time and here daily. I wish we had 10 more workers like him.” - “Cole has stepped up to help train and bring on new hires into the ICS position throughout the company, while also helping out the other departments make sure they have product and supplies on hand and ready to be used. He has worked nonstop to get the inventory team up to speed when it comes to the new hires and having to train multiple employees in different departments to be able to have the ICS position covered in each branch.”

Congratulations to our 2023 Leader of the Year - Manager Award recipient Christine Norton! Christine is our Director of Intake and Medical Records. Here is what her teammates said about her when nominating her for this award:   - “Christine is the epitome of a truly excellent manager! I have worked with her almost 7 years in the Intake Dept and she has consistently walked the walk; she is passionate about NELCs mission and patients, incredibly supportive of her staff, and has boundless energy and enthusiasm for her role as manager. I have deep respect for Christine because her actions are always professional, proactive, and consistently coming from a place of "teamwork makes the dream work." In her tenure at NELC she has been an integral part in the growth of new programs, increased patient volume, and flexibility whenever needed. Christine is hugely deserving of this recognition as she surpasses all the criteria for Leader of the Year.” - “Her love and passion for this department and her staff is like no other.” and kind words.” - “Model leader who solves the smallest to largest problems with a smile and kind words.”

Our President and CEO, Bob Calway, was recently interviewed by Becker's alongside 86 executives from hospitals and health systems across the US. They were all asked “What is the most needle-moving innovation you've rolled out in the past year and why?”. Here is what Bob had to say about NELC: "We have been seeking opportunities to introduce artificial intelligence and robotic process automation applications to improve efficiency, quality, and productivity. We introduced an RPA process that automated the import of home infusion pharmacy orders from the hospital post-acute referral process. This improvement significantly reduced labor demands for the manual re-entry of previously faxed orders, dramatically reduced errors associated with transcription, thereby improving patient safety, and increased the productivity of staff who previously were responsible for this "mundane" but important activity. This innovation was a home run!" Be sure to check out the responses from other hospital executives across the country as they can give us some insights into what others are doing to innovate and inspire efficiency.