With the addition of two nurses, Sun Health’s Care Transitions team continues growing to meet the needs of more patients benefiting from the nonprofit program. They will help Care Transitions patients navigate through the difficult and sometimes daunting experience of living with a chronic illness.
Peoria’s Marianne Del Debbio, RN, joins the team as a case manager. She served most recently in quality management for Banner Boswell Medical Center, where she initiated and executed process improvement projects and contributed to ongoing physician and nurse patient-care education and compliance. Del Debbio is also a subject-matter expert for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and heart failure core measures and the Stroke Get with the Guidelines (GWTG) program. She received an associate’s degree in science and nursing from Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Ill.
Goodyear’s Pamela Sorg, LPN, joins the team as a licensed practical nurse coordinator. Sorg previously worked at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center’s Transplant Clinic. Her Banner Health career started as a traveling nurse until she was hired full-time for Good Samaritan’s Acute Rehab clinic. Previously, she worked with Intelistaf Nursing, Wyndot Manor Nursing Home and American Nursing, all in Ohio. She studied at Glen Oaks Community College in Ohio and Gateway Community College in Arizona.
“Marianne and Pamela both have expertise in different areas that will greatly benefit the services and care we provide to our patients,” said Nancy Webber, RN, MSN, Sun Health’s director of chronic disease and wellness programs. “Their dedication to patient well-being makes them ideal team members for the Sun Health Care Transitions program.”
The nurses enter a program that in its second year earned consecutive “Outstanding Leadership in Population Health Award” from the Care Continuum Alliance (CCA). Representing more than 200 health companies, organizations and individual providers committed to improving the health of populations, the CCA focuses on raising care quality, improving health outcomes and reducing costs for individuals affected by chronic disease.
The award acknowledges the program’s impact on nearly 2,000 chronic disease patients, who are living healthier lives since it launched in November 2011. Partnering with Banner Boswell Medical Center, Banner Del E. Webb Medical Center, community physicians and other providers, Care Transitions nurses educate patients on how to better manage their disease and stay healthy. Ultimately, this support reduces their chances of being rehospitalized. Fewer than seven percent of patients participating in this free program have been readmitted, compared to a 20-percent national average among Medicare services beneficiaries.
A long-standing community partner championing healthy living, Sun Health is a community-based health care organization providing pathways to Population Health through philanthropy, senior living, community programs and superior health care. Population Health aims to improve the health of an entire population.
Nonprofit Sun Health employs a variety of resources to develop healthy living programs that have the potential to enrich lives – for residents, patients, volunteers and donors. Its core service lines include:
- Philanthropy for local health care, community health programs and senior living,
- Senior living at The Colonnade (Surprise), Grandview Terrace (Sun City West) and La Loma Village (Litchfield Park), and
- Community Health Programs: Sun Health Care Transitions, Sun Health Medication Management, Sun Health Memory Care Navigator and Sun Health Community Education.
Learn more at www.SunHealth.org.
