A Passion for Connecting Clients to Community to Improve Lives

Gwen has worked in many different health care environments from the ER, to home health to healthcare management. Throughout this mix of environments and roles, she’s developed an understanding of the complexity of the health care system – and also the extent to which environments can impact health outcomes. In her current role, she sees the benefit of working as an RN care coordinator in Chicago with clients who are aging-in-place in their home environment. She enjoys helping clients obtain access to care and SDoH resources they need to continue living their best lives at home. 

Gwen sees that clients may have trouble accessing social services that are available in their community due to their lack of ability to use technology or their lack of knowledge about what’s available to them.  

“That’s the type of work Help at Home is doing that’s really interesting to me,” said Gwen. “Working with the community to help put people in touch with resources is an opportunity to help navigate the system and get past barriers that might exist to care access. We’re helping to put them in touch with those resources so that they can have a good, supportive home environment,”  

One of the Help at Home clients Gwen was able to help was experiencing a problem accessing her medication at her pharmacy due to her inability to drive. Gwen assisted by providing guidance to her client to switch to home pharmacy delivery. 

“Everyone I come across is pretty grateful for the one-on-one attention they get,” she said. “I’ve heard from people ‘thanks for caring,’ because they don’t always feel cared about. They are grateful that we’re checking in on them.”