CORRECTION: The top lobbying spender in 2024 was 1199SEIU Labor Management Initiatives, Inc. Healthcare Education Project, an advocacy group jointly funded by the state’s largest health care union and the Greater New York Hospital Association, not the union itself. The union, not that entity, backed reforms to the state’s consumer directed personal assistance program but was not among the top ten lobbying spenders. This information was updated in the article, “Health interests top list of lobbying spenders driven by home care fight, hospital issues,” in April 8’s Health Pulse.
TOBACCO EDUCATION: The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene awarded grants to three community-based organizations to foster tobacco and smoking prevention efforts, the agency said Tuesday. The grants supported a series of listening sessions that involved more than 50,000 people who offered their input on smoking and e-cigarette use in their communities. The efforts, funded with $100,000 from a philanthropy network known as the Partnership for Healthy Cities, supported tobacco education efforts led by the Latino Commission on AIDS in Flatiron, the Center for Independence of the Disabled in Midtown and the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, which has locations in Lower Manhattan and Flushing.
OVERDOSE PILOT: Lincoln Hospital in Mott Haven launched a new program to help people with addiction who use its emergency department. The public hospital said Tuesday that it has started a pilot initiative known as the “hotspotting” program, which connects patients in the ER for opioid use or non-fatal overdose to a dedicated team to monitor their care. Under the pilot, designed in partnership with the nonprofit Staten Island Performing Provider System, community health and peer support workers keep in contact with patients for up to a year to link them to counseling, medical care and housing or other social needs. The public hospital system received $600,000 from the Robin Hood Foundation, a philanthropy group based in Midtown, to support its new overdose pilot program.
