A Message from our CEO and Board Chair

Dear Friends,

Welcome to our VNS Health 2024 Benefit!

We’re excited to have you join us on Thursday evening, November 14th, when we come together to celebrate our two esteemed honorees, Ann and Mark Baiada. We’re also deeply grateful for your invaluable support of VNS Health’s Charitable Care and Community Impact programs.

Building Healthy Communities – the theme of this year’s Benefit – is what VNS Health has been doing for the past 131 years. Every day, we provide expert and compassionate care to our patients, health plan members and clients, enabling them to live their best lives in their homes and communities, where they belong. Last year alone, together with our supporters, grantors and donors, we provided more than $66 million in charitable care and community impact benefits to tens of thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers.

Building healthy communities is also what our honorees – legendary health care leaders Ann and Mark Baiada – have been doing for decades, which is why they’re so deserving of our 2024 Lillian D. Wald Award. Named after the nation’s first public health nurse and founder of our organization, the Lillian D. Wald Award is presented annually to those who have made significant contributions to the health and welfare of others.

Ann Baiada, RN, is a champion of the nursing profession. Her unwavering commitment to clinical excellence motivated her to create two training and mentoring programs at BAYADA Home Health Care—Project White Cap, a training program for new nurses, and Project White Shoes, an annual training for clinical leaders. Ann also founded BAYADAbility Rehab Solutions, the nation’s first and only home health care rehabilitation nursing program, in 1998. Her passion for nursing and her ability to empower and inspire led to the creation of an award in her honor, the Ann Baiada Award for Excellence in Nursing Leadership in 2006, and the establishment of the Ann Baiada Center for Clinical Excellence in 2010.

Mark Baiada founded BAYADA Home Health Care in 1975 with the mission to help people live safely at home with comfort, independence and dignity. Almost 50 years later, BAYADA has grown from its humble beginnings to become a global leader in home health care, serving clients from more than 380 offices in 22 states with additional locations in Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Korea.

In early 2019, Mark, now Chairman of BAYADA, oversaw the company’s transition to a nonprofit organization. Unprecedented in the industry, the transition was made to ensure that BAYADA’s mission, purpose, and business model would endure, and to help BAYADA realize its vision of helping millions of people worldwide experience a better quality of life at home.

Thank you, Ann and Mark, for all you’ve done — and continue to do — for home care patients around the world!

This year, we once again welcome back our dear friend Kori Chambers, the Emmy Award-winning anchor of PIX11 News, as our evening’s Master of Ceremonies. This is Kori’s fourth straight year as our Master of Ceremonies, and we are so thankful for his involvement.

Thank you again for joining us in celebrating our 2024 Benefit. And thank you, too, for supporting us throughout the year as together we continue the ongoing work of building healthy communities!