On May 18th, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York became VNS Health. What prompted this change?
Coming together under a single brand—as VNS Health—is essential to our overall strategy. Over the decades since our founding as the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, we’ve evolved into a multifaceted organization with products and services operating under a number of different brand names. This was creating confusion for our consumers and our industry partners. Our rebrand cuts through that confusion by uniting all our programs and services within the VNS Health brand.
How will this benefit your patients and plan members as well as your partners in health care?
Our new branding simplifies how we’re perceived by our patients, members and their families, and makes it easier to understand and access the various services we offer. As VNS Health, consumers can clearly see we’re an organization with a broad range of home- and community-based services that can help support them at every stage of their healthcare journey.
Do you envision the VNS Health rebrand helping your internal operations as well?
Absolutely. For a number of years, we’ve been focused on breaking down silos within our organization and leveraging our different capabilities in a synergistic way, and our rebrand will be a huge help in that regard. While our individual business units were doing an excellent job in and of themselves, they weren’t always connecting well with each other. Coming together as a single organization is going to enhance our ability to collaborate internally.
How do you see the rebrand impacting your business-to-business offerings?
We’ve been administering Medicare and Medicaid plans successfully for over two decades. We’re now looking to draw on that experience and partner with health plans and other risk-bearing organizations that can benefit from our expertise and services. To make those partnerships work, though, we need to effectively explain who VNS Health is, and how we can be of help. A big part of our growth will be with our VNS Health Professional Solutions, whose role is to market our B2B products to health plans, state agencies, physician groups, hospitals, and so on. Our rebrand supports this strategy: Instead of being a collection of different brands, we’re now one united VNS Health, offering a range of different services—which leaves us ideally positioned to provide other health care organizations with our experience, and talk about those services and how we can work together to meet their needs.
Is VNS Health setting the stage for doing business outside New York?
We’ve been helping to reduce health disparities and close gaps in care among vulnerable communities since our founding, 129 years ago—and if we’re true to that mission, we would hope to expand the scope of the care we deliver. At the same time, we’re going to be very mindful of how we expand. Serving the New York City area will always be core to who we are. On the other hand, as a nationally recognized leader in home- and community-based care delivery and care management, we’re not limited by geography or clinical scope—and being known as VNS Health will definitely help with that.
What excites you most about the VNS Health rebrand?
I’m excited that it captures the totality of services, programs and solutions that we offer to our patients, members, their caregivers and our partners. As one organization, we will create new opportunities for our team members and better access to care for those we serve. I’m also excited that we’re nurturing an environment where every VNS Health employee feels connected to the broader organization and knows they’re critical to our success. Finally, I’m excited because our new VNS Health brand will do a better job of conveying that we’re more than just a nursing organization. To give just one example, we have almost 500 social workers providing incredible support out in the community, which many people don’t know about. I want everyone—especially those who are really struggling in multiple ways—to understand the breadth of our services, and to realize that we’re there for them in their healthcare journey, whatever their needs may be.
