New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation

Elderly New Yorkers with uncontrolled diabetes often have difficulty finding community resources that offer easy, accessible, senior-focused exercise and wellness programs.

As one of the largest integrated care delivery systems in New York City, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) set out to address this issue by designing and implementing the Community of Older Adults Care About Their Health (WeCOACH) program. This community-based diabetes management program matched patients age 60 years and older who had uncontrolled diabetes with peer coaches. Trained as community health workers, peer coaches were responsible for patient recruitment; exercise instruction and motivation; education on diabetes and self-care strategies; patient navigation assistance; and regular patient consultation. WeCOACH partnered with local nonprofit senior centers funded by New York City’s Department for the Aging to hold exercise classes and to link participants with other programming and services. In 2011, NYHealth awarded HHC a grant to evaluate the WeCOACH program.

This grant supported an evaluation of the WeCOACH program, including an analysis of: 1) the outcomes of patients served by the program; 2) costs associated with unmanaged diabetes in a cohort of the population not served by this program; 3) costs associated with administering the WeCOACH program; and 4) savings realized by HHC as a result of the program.