Robert P. Connolly has an illustrious and proven track record of being a successful, pioneering, analytical, and administrative social worker in leadership positions in the private sector and public arena. His experience is extensive in health care, Medicare and Medicaid public policy, and quality measurements. Mr. Connolly is a leader in health care policy in the area of long-term care.
Throughout his career of more than 45 years, Mr. Connolly has worked to improve social work nationally in hospitals, nursing homes, and long-term care facilities. From 1988 to 2008, he was a health insurance specialist at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). He utilized his professional acumen to engage and support interdisciplinary long-term care, nursing home leaders, and researchers to identify ways to involve social work in health care and nursing home psychosocial geriatric policies. For three years, he served as the project officer for the Minimum Data Set, version 3.0 (MDS 3.0) Design and Development Validation contract, which was developed to replace the outdated MDS 2.0 that was used in 16,000 Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes. Mr. Connolly used his analytic, facilitation, management and social work skills to work with the Rand and Harvard principal investigators. national experts from medicine, nursing, physical therapy, information technology, psychology, social work, nursing home providers , professional organizations to identify and test new and revised MDS 3.0 items. Rand led the national validation study of the MDS 3.0 in 71 community nursing homes (3,822 residents) and 19 Veteran’s Health Administration nursing homes (764 residents), regionally distributed throughout the United States. The most important finding from the national field test showed that “resident voice interview items were more efficient and accurate then the MDS 2.0 mode of collecting and integrating information from multiple staff across different shifts.” MDS 3.0 patient self-report interview items and face-to-face interviews were demonstrated in the national study to improve the accuracy and coding items for pain intensity, mood/depression using the PHQ 9 (Patient Health Questionnaire), cognition using the BIMS (Brief Interview for Mental Status), customary and routine items and return to the community items. The MDS 3.0 was implemented in October 2010 and the new and improved MDS3.0 items are used for nursing home care planning, nursing home and skilled nursing facility (SNF) payment, quality indicators and survey and certification reviews for Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing homes.His pioneering spirit was also important because of the emerging CMS policies requiring patient-centered care data for nursing home residents, in order to test a new post-acute care discharge instrument across acute and long-term care settings.
Mr. Connolly served as Co-investigator with Sheryl Zimmerman of the University of North Carolina, School of Social Work, the National Association of Social Workers, and the University of Iowa for an Agency for Healthcare Research Interdisciplinary Conference grant entitled “Dissemination and Partnerships to Improve Psychosocial Long Term Care." The focus of the grant was to improve psychosocial outcomes by identifying assessment and care planning instruments in long-term for use by professionals and paraprofessionals. In addition, he served as a Co-facilitator for focus groups of nursing home social workers and administrators to assess clinical capacity and training needs with the implementation of MDS 3.0 (Minimum Data SET, VERSION 3.0, an Assessment Instrument utilized in 16,000 nursing homes to determine care planning needs of residents).
Mr. Connolly began his professional career in 1967 as a Child Welfare Worker at the Alameda County Welfare and Probation Department in Oakland, California. He later worked at the Children's Hospital Medical Center, Oakland, California, doing pioneering work in Pediatric Cardiology/Hemophilia Social Work utilizing individual, marital, family, and group intervention techniques. He served as the Assistant Director of Social Work at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland from 1979 to 1982. In this capacity he was responsible for directing social work services and research on the Surgery, Neuroscience and Oncology Units with a staff of 23. From 1982 to 1988 he was Director, Senior Programs and subsequently Social Work Director at the Union Memorial Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to directing the social work staff, he was responsible for managing, marketing, and long-term planning for geriatric programs.
Beginning in 1988, Mr. Connolly worked as a Health Insurance Specialist at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration). During the next 20 years at CMS, he used his skills to improve and enhance social work services and practices in the nursing care facilities and long-term care programs. In recognition of his professional contributions, Mr. Connolly received the Secretary of Health and Human Services Team Award for Nursing Home Quality Initiative Activities in 2002.