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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Jonathan Jiménez, MD, Executive Director of NYC Care at NYC Health + Hospitals
00:15:21
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- [00:02]
Athenahealth Narrator
@ Athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier a healthier business, healthier care teams, and healthier patients. But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make it hard for you and your care teams to focus on what matters most. That's where athenahealth can help our AI native all in one solutions reduce administrative burdens, streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights when clinicians need it most. That means fewer clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice can be that much simpler. With Athenahealth, see how simpler is healthier at athenahealth.com.
- [00:44]
Laura Deardo
This is Laura Deardo with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Dr. Jonathan Jimenez, Executive Director of NYC Care at NYC Health and Hospitals. Dr. Jimenez, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:57]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.
- [01:00]
Laura Deardo
Absolutely. Well, I'm excited to have you here because I know we're going to be talking about a campaign that you're doing right now at NYC Care, which is focused on a multilingual Light the Way campaign, which features artwork, video, and more focused on the benefits of community programming, especially for immigrant communities, which is so important today. So I'm excited to dig in there. But first, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background?
- [01:28]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
Of course, yeah. So I'm Jonathan Jimenez. As you mentioned, I'm a family doctor, practicing family doctor and executive director of the NYC Care Program. I was originally actually born in Queens and in our public hospital system at Altonhurst Hospital and was really proud to be able to come back and serve the community that I came from. Starting about six years ago that I've been here at New York City Health and Hospitals, which is actually the largest public health care system in the country.
- [02:02]
Laura Deardo
That's amazing to hear. What a great story of being born within the hospital system and now coming back to help serve the broader community. Can you tell me a little bit more about NYC Care and the Light the Way campaign? What do you really see as being inspiring about it and how do you. What are the goals?
- [02:23]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
Absolutely. NYC Care is a healthcare access program within New York City health and hospitals, really designed to invite everyone, every New Yorker to take advantage of the services that the public health care system has to offer them. Regardless of whether they're undocumented or they have legal status or whether they have health insurance or not, we're here to take care of all New Yorkers. And the Light the Way campaign specifically is really designed to get that message out there, especially now. I think in a time when many people are afraid to seek services, we are out there saying in very clear terms that our services are available to you. Healthcare in New York City is a right through NYC Care and New York City health and hospitals. And we're saying it in many different languages, as you mentioned in print, digital. We also are going to be having campaigns out in the public, doing outreach, handing out flyers. We work with 22 community based organizations as well that are often and frequently doing outreach in person. So this is really part of a multimodal campaign to get the word out about access to healthcare in New York City.
- [03:43]
Laura Deardo
That's amazing to hear. You know, it sounds like such a beneficial program that emphasizes just the accessibility and importance of making sure that communities are healthy. I think especially when you look at just everything happening in the world today, how do you really move forward with this program in a meaningful way? How do you know the right touch points in partner with the community organizations that are going to be most meaningful in getting the word out?
- [04:11]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
It's a great question and it's something we're honestly thinking about frequently. Where, where do we find, meet people, as is often said, where they are. And so we are try to keep an open mind and really listen to our, the patients we serve and also to the community organizations that we're partnering with because often they've been in the community serving uninsured New Yorkers, immigrant New Yorkers, sometimes for decades and so they know best where to reach people. One, I think innovative partnership has also been with our consulates. Many nations have consulates here in New York City where they serve immigrant communities needing different forms of documents from their home countries. And partnering with them has been one place that has been really fruitful because often folks who are seeking services from the consul are consul general from the consulates don't have access to health insurance or don't know, as the NYC Care program is trying to emphasize, don't know that they do have access. And so we want to make sure that they stay connected to care.
- [05:29]
Laura Deardo
That makes a lot of sense. And you know, it seems like a really great partnership to have. Now I know many immigrant families may face fear or uncertainty, as you mentioned, when accessing health care due to status or enforcement concerns. So how does your messaging and the involvement of the different partnerships in the community help build that trust and encourage people to seek the care that they need?
- [05:53]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
That's, that's a great question. It's one of the things I'm actually Most proud of is that we've been doing this work since the launch of the program to be, to have our, our NYC Care name well known in the community, to share success stories about the program with the community in multiple different languages. So I think we have built a lot of trust, especially through our frequent perennial advertising, marketing and also our community outreach. And I think that has made it so that our patients, for example, that are NYC Care members are continuing to come to get the care that they need. And I see this in my clinic and we've been monitoring closely that closely as well. And so far we've seen that members, people who have enrolled in the NYC Care program continue to come. Our concern and our impetus for this Light the Way campaign is to make sure that people continue to come and that, that any new New Yorkers out there, or maybe people that haven't yet heard about access to care, know that we're still a safe place to get the care that they need and to just know all the services we provide. Because it really is a special program that provides comprehensive services, primary preventative specialty care that's affordable for low income New Yorkers and uninsured New Yorkers.
- [07:23]
Laura Deardo
Absolutely. That is amazing to hear and I can imagine a huge responsibility as I know, you know how many new folks come into New York City every day and certainly would benefit from that type of care. Now I know NYC Care serves more than 139,000 active members currently and has facilitated over 1 million primary care appointments. So what are some of the measurable outcomes or stories that best illustrate the program's impact on health equity across the city?
- [07:53]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
Well, this is really one of the reasons that I feel so motivated and passionate about this because I, I see patients in my clinic frequently who have not seen a doctor in 10 years and it's because they heard about the NYC care program that they first get connected and, you know, get their health needs met. And it can be as simple as I had chronic headaches and now I can, you know, get my glasses prescription, get that filled, resolve my headaches to someone who's been managing diabetes with home remedies, right, and finally has access to affordable medications and treatments that they need. So the impact I see in other clinics across the system, our primary care teams, across some doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses see it every day. And I think that's why they're so excited about the work that they do. And we've also done peer review research that's been published comparing new Medicaid enrollees to new NYC Care members and showing that NYC Care members had the same or better level of engagement in care. So going to primary care visits to specialty visits. And I think really important for me as a primary care doctor, among patients with diabetes and hypertension, that they had comparable chronic disease control to their peers that were enrolled in Medicaid, which to me is really, we're achieving the health equity that is so often an aspirational goal. We are achieving a piece of that through this program. And we've been able to show that in our research.
- [09:38]
Laura Deardo
That's amazing to hear and, you know, really cool that you have the ability with some of even just small treatments and interventions to make a really big difference for the patients that you serve. I wanted to ask you quickly here as well, in thinking about the campaign design, and I know you talked through some of the different modes of the campaign, whether it's print, digital transit, social media. So how do you determine what communities to prioritize with the outreach? What types of outreach work well with which communities? And how does that dovetail into some of the cultural and linguistic inclusivity that you've been working on throughout the campaign?
- [10:16]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
That's a great question, and it is definitely a challenge. New York City is the. Actually, I don't know if I could say this for sure, but I think it's the most diverse city in the country. Certainly. I know that Elmhurst Hospital sits in a zip code. That's the hospital where I was born. It's one of our 11 hospitals at New York City Health and Hospitals sits in a zip code that's often lauded as the most diverse zip code in. In the country. But. But yeah, so that is a challenge to reach everyone. So, but we, again, we have practice at it. So we. All of our materials are published in 13 different languages to capture the most commonly requested languages. And we also translate some of our materials into more languages than that. I believe the last time it was 50 different languages to make sure that they're available to people that serve those communities. We also look really closely at the data to see where the most need is. So we have a sense of where uninsured people are most likely to live. And that can also give us a sense of what languages they speak, what ethnicities, and compare that to, you know, the people that are already engaged in care. And so that helps us a bit. But we try to maintain a pretty wide net in everything we do and, you know, translate all of our materials and be accessible for speaking on to different newspapers of different languages, and that serves different communities. But sometimes we do target some of our outreach based on where we think based on the data, for example, that some communities might be less connected to care than other communities. And unfortunately that does happen. And I think it's on us to ensure that every single New Yorker and every single community within New York City is connected and knows about our services.
- [12:25]
Laura Deardo
That's fascinating. And, you know, it seems like a really important strategy, especially having that data available makes a big difference. Now, before we wrap up, I wanted to ask about the future. What are some of the things that you're doing as you look ahead? How do you see the future of NYC Care continuing to scale and becoming more available and beneficial for New Yorkers in the future?
- [12:50]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
Well, we are. In the past 12 months, we added a new benefit that was previously wasn't a part of NYC Care, called Durable Medical Equipment benefit, which made durable medical equipment like wheelchairs, ostomy bags, blood pressure cuffs available to NYC Care members. These are, this is equipment that's really important to living their healthiest life. And we're really excited about that achievement. And so we're going to continue to make sure people know about that. Moving forward and looking into the future, I think we're interested in expanding further benefits and through like the Wake campaign and other forms of outreach and awareness building. We are. Our goal is for every New Yorker to have a primary care doctor or a primary care provider. And we. I know from my experience in clinic that that's still not the case. And just from talking to folks in the community, we, I still meet people, as I mentioned, that haven't seen a doctor in many years at times. And so that's our main focus moving forward, just to make sure that everyone can remain connected and or get connected for the first time in many cases to care and continue to expand the benefits of the program.
- [14:21]
Laura Deardo
Dr. Menez, I love it. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been such an inspiring conversation and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
- [14:30]
Dr. Jonathan Jimenez
Thank you so much for having us and supporting us as we continue to make healthcare human right here in New York City. Thank you.
- [14:39]
Athenahealth Narrator
At athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier, a healthier business, healthier care teams and healthier patients. But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make it hard for you and your care teams to focus on what matters most. That's where athenahealth can help our AI native all in one solutions, reduce administrative burdens, streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights when clinicians need it most. That means fewer clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom lines. Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice can be that much simpler with Athenahealth. See how simpler is healthier@athenahealth.com.