Volunteer Spotlight: Auriana Palombi

Her innovative database means more time for client interaction

During the unprecedented time of COVID-19, effective telecommuting has become increasingly important. This is especially true for Full Life’s Health Home care coordinators who are now relying on remote means to connect Medicaid beneficiaries with chronic health conditions to key services and resources.

Auriana Palombi

So in March, when public health student Auriana Palombi from Lake Washington Institute of Technology offered to volunteer at Full Life for her capstone graduation project, Health Home Program Director, Katheryn Howell, knew the perfect placement.

The goal of this project was to create a more streamlined and user-vetted database tool for Health Home. The aim of the customization of the tool was to provide care coordinator staff with a more desirable product that improves the quality and speed of client service delivery.

The community resource, nicknamed Caboodle, provides staff a method to view and reference thousands of different pieces of information regarding telehealth, support groups, food bank contacts, government responses to COVID-19, and even methods to discover stimulus support.

Auriana recently graduated from the Lake Washington Institute of Technology with a degree in Public Health. She has been dedicated to public health and service through many experiences, including working as a physical therapy assistant and volunteering with children at FUNFitness Special Olympics. Auriana has also worked with seniors and individuals with disabilities and has shown her exemplary skill and work ethic with more than 90 hours of service through this project.

Auriana is now moving on to graduate school to receive a doctorate in physical therapy. 

Auriana said that her biggest achievement from this project was not the Excel skills she cultivated, but rather the communication and teamwork skills she developed through reaching out to the other students, teachers, staff and professionals. Auriana was able to gain assessment, analytical and cultural competency skills that she will be able to apply in future work. Auriana said that her experience at Full Life Care was one of “immense growth and education” along with a gained “inspiration for this organization and desire to facilitate resourcing of health promotion at any level.”

Katheryn says the next step with the database is to make the tool available on WEB DB (the database used for the entire network).

“This is will help us tremendously by keeping this vetted resource list at our care coordinator’s fingertips,” she said. “No longer will be left sifting through electronic files looking for the right resource. We will gain efficiency and allow for more time with clients.”

Full Life Care thanks Auriana  for her dedicated commitment.