Announcer: Funding for "NJ Spotlight News" provided by the members of the New Jersey education Association.

And R W J Barnabas Health.

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♪ Briana: -- >> From NJ previous studios, this is NJ Spotlight News with Briana Vannozzi.

Briana: Hello and thank you for joining us.

On this edition of NJ Spotlight News, we look at a range of issues impacting residents in our state and nation.

Take a look.

A new approach to health care in this state is bringing treatment beyond the walls of a hospital and writing to patient's homes.

Virtual health is the first system in the state to operate a mobile integrated health program, deploying paramedics and EMT's's to provide nonemergency care and manage chronic conditions over things.

The goal is to catch problems early and reduce unnecessary trips to the emergency department.

Joining me to discuss how the program works into it is designed to help is James Newman, the vice president of patient logistics at Virtua health.

Thank you for coming on.

What exactly is MIH?

How does it work day to day?

James: Thanks for the invitation.

We are pleased to be the first system in New Jersey to be licensed to brew able to provide -- to be able to provide this.

It sends specially trained power -- specially trained paramedics to provide nonemergency care.

Typically following an inpatient stay, or in conjunction with a primary care or specialty care position.

We provide focus in home assessment, treatment under physician direction, structured follow-up, and even access to care coordination and navigation.

It is really designed to identify issues early, keep patients on track after a hospital stay, or an emergency visit.

Briana: What kind of patient would receive a visit?

Can you give us an on the ground example?

James: Absolutely.

Bradley, any condition -- broadly, any condition that places a patient at risk for hospitalization or rehospitalization after a visit is a candidate for this program.

Some common examples include COPD patients or congestive heart failure, heart disease, ammonia.

MIH is really especially helpful during high risk or difficult transitions to home.

And really, as we think about that, congestive heart failure patients, they may experience after they are home a change in symptoms that becomes concerning, but not emergent.

Retaining additional fluid, experiencing vital sign changes, or even mild shortness of breath.

Mobile integrated health has the ability to come into the home, assess the patient under a physician's orders, administer IV diuretics, or coordinate in real time with the physician to adjust in-home medications, potentially schedule added visits.

This often presents unnecessary ER visits or rehospitalization.

Briana: How does a patient get into the program?

Is that something the hospital is coordinated and saying, this is a patient that needs to be in this?

How quickly do they get seen?

James: Any patient -- any virtual patient may participate in the program.

It is a referral based program from a Virtua physician or care provider.

The physician will determine both the appropriateness of being entered into the program, the care that is necessary post hospitalization, as well as the timing.

We can do visits in a short -- in as short as an hour, one to two days if that is what a provider requests, or even within 48 hours.

Following that based on the initial visit, working in conjunction with our physicians, will really determine if a single visit is adequate, or if a patient needs continuous visits, or to be connected with our overall care at home model.

Briana: As I understand it, this operation is going to run around the clock.

Across South Jersey.

What's the need as far as you know, and do you have the capacity to meet that?

Are you going to have to scale up at some point?

James: Yes, we do intend to run the program 24/7.

And that is intentional.

We have talked about these visits that are really scheduled by providers.

We also intend to provide services on demand to really fill that void between provider and emergency department.

Even in the off hours.

We have a strong workforce developing program at Virtua.

We continue to build out our workforce and train our workforce.

Yes, the program will be scaled to meet the need.

We are here for good at Virtua and we have a commitment to continue to grow this program and be committed to our patients.

Briana: What have you heard from patients about the gap that this would fill, or the need for it?

The fact that maybe they don't have to go into a hospital and have that whole weight and the process that it is?

James: At Virtua, we have been committed to growing our care at home strategy for a few years now.

Patient satisfaction has grown as a result of that.

Patients want to be treated in their home where they are comfortable.

Where they are happier and around family members.

We know this program will reduce barriers to care, such as transportation challenges, or difficulty following care plans.

We are excited about that.

We know our patients are excited about it and the feedback has been phenomenal.

Briana: If folks are looking for more information or to get maybe a family member enrolled, where can they find that?

James: I would direct individuals to our website, as well as to connect with their Virtua physicians for more information about the program.

Briana: James Newman with Virtua health, thank you for your time.

We really appreciate it.

We will check back with you as the program it's up and running fully.

James: We appreciate it.

Briana: Tonight, a deeper look at how a wounded construction worker became a relentless champion of 9/11 responders.

John feel rushed to Ground Zero on September 11, and that act changed his life forever.

After suffering a devastating injury days later at the site, he went on to become a leading voice in the fight for responders health care and compensation on Capitol Hill.

As we look ahead to the 25th anniversary of the attack, Feal is sharing that journey and the stories of those who stood behind him in a new book "I will follow you anywhere."

He will -- he will speak May 7 at the Memorial and Museum alongside fellow advocates who have testified before Congress.

John Feal joins us now.

It is so good to have you back on the show, as it always is.

As I noted at the top, this year will mark the 25th anniversary.

What do you remember most vividly about the moment you decided to go to Ground Zero and how did that change the course of your life?

John: Well one, thank you for having me.

I'm humbled to be here.

I'm humbled to be alive.

You know, I look back and I don't really reminisce.

With therapy and a help of therapy over the years, I can block out what I did I Ground Zero five and a half days before my injury.

But if I close my eyes, I can smell the carnage, the death, the destruction.

Probably why I don't sleep a lot.

But it is definitely the smell that is always going to haunt me.

What I saw, I choose to remember the good.

I remember the humanity in people.

I remember uniform nine coming together, man, woman, Black, white.

There was no title.

We were all human beings.

We all gave of ourselves.

Some people more than others.

For those that died that horrific Tuesday morning, my heart bleeds for their families.

Because there is a wound that hasn't closed.

For those who didn't lose someone and is still suffering, it's why I fight and why I advocate.

It's why I do this 24/seven.

Briana: How did you transform?

You are a construction supervisor, you had this traumatizing injury.

I mean, 8000 pound piece of steel.

How did you transform from that and from doing that work into an activist who has taken on Congress and woman?

-- and won?

John: I don't want to cliché it, but I -- no one knows what they are capable of until they have to.

I'm right where I'm supposed to be right now.

This wasn't on my bingo card in 2001 and 2002.

Technically, it's still not on my bingo card because sometimes I'm in shock and awe looking back over the last five years.

I've been able to help a lot of people.

What I'm going to remember most is the friendships and the bridges that were formed, so people who are vulnerable like me can collaborate and move forward together, and ensure we get the help we get.

It's why I wrote the book.

It was our story to tell.

Over the years, so many people wrote books.

Like Joan Stewart, there is a whole chapter in his book.

There is a whole chapter in my book.

There is a whole chapter in there on me.

I wanted to tell about 12, 13, 14 people who are heroes before they ever met me.

And what they did I Ground Zero and how they got sick, and how they joined me in D.C., and how they joined teen David to fight Goliath.

We didn't win just once, we passed seven bills in Congress, in 20 altogether in Albany, New Jersey, Michigan.

While they coined it guerrilla lobbying, I call it humanity.

I call it challenging their humanity to do what's right.

One we don't value human life, then we fail.

I failed at a lot of things in life but I'm never going to fail at valuing human life.

Briana: You made it a point in the book to make sure the story is told through the lens of those other responders.

You made hundreds, almost 500 trips to Washington, alongside your brothers and sisters in advocacy.

It took nearly a decade for the James a drogue a act to be signed into law.

Even now, there are issues with the world health -- World Trade Center health program.

I know you were scheduled to have a meeting with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

about staffing cuts, funding, funding research delays.

What does that say to you about how this issue is still being handled 25 years later, and can you give us an update on whether or not you still plan to speak with him?

John: We definitely plan on speaking with him.

It is just a matter of everybody's schedule.

It's more than just me and him.

Go back a little over a year ago when Elon Musk cut everything and then Kennedy started cutting the world trade health organization program.

The original bill in 2010 calls for 120 people to be staffed to oversee the world trade health center program.

We have never made it to 120 people.

But the program was doing its job and running efficiently.

Right now, there are 83 people working that oversee the enrollment and the certification.

It has come to a complete halt.

Getting these people into the program is literally an Olympic event right now.

We are working diligently to fix that, to ensure that Kennedy does the right thing.

Is not just the enrollment and certification.

It's giving the $20 million a year for research for these illnesses.

It is also putting heart, cardiac, cognitive and autoimmune back on the table, because they would have been voted on last year.

Thousands of people would have been able to make amendments to their claims and get help from the health care that they deserve.

If you go back after 9/11, nobody ever apologized.

They said the air was safe to breathe, the water was safe to drink.

Nobody apologized.

What they did was create the world trade center health program.

I helped create the World Trade Center health program.

They consider me a founding father.

That was there sorry that was their apology.

But they made us fight, and still fight right now for over two decades without an apology.

They are literally putting the carrot at the end of the stick, and we are chasing it.

We always win, and I don't call a win a wind like in the sense of a baseball game you won.

Because people suffering and die while we are in the process of fighting and advocating.

It's not a clean win.

But we have obstacles and hurdles in front of us.

We used to have two sidestep and walk around them and say please.

We don't beg no more.

We go through these obstacles and hurdles now.

Members of Congress work for the American people.

If you want to be an advocate or activist, that is your number one thing to remember.

They work for you.

You don't have to go yes, sir, you are a superstar, can I get a picture with you?

Do your job, shut up and deal with humanity.

Briana: It's leave it on that note because your book is part memoir, part guidebook.

What is one thing that folks can take from your book about what they can do when they feel helpless against large government systems?

Is there one piece of advice you can leave with folks?

John: Show them you have endurance and stamina.

At the end of each chapter in the book is the recipe, the playbook, on how you can get involved and engaged, whether it is at the local, state, federal level, if you want to get legislation passed.

If I can do it, anybody can do it.

My IQ is around room temperature at best.

Listen, you go into a lab, you are going to get mad and cry.

If somebody from Minnesota or Texas or anywhere across the country reaches out to me and says, I have this piece of legislation and I want to do this, then I'm going to help them.

I'm going to get them involved.

The American people deserve better than what's happening right now.

Take 9/11 out of the equation.

This country is on fire.

This country is on fire because two parties would rather see each other lose than the American people win.

Last time I checked, we are all human beings.

Going back to when we don't value human life, then we fail.

We fail.

I am never going to conform to what society dictates on how we treat each other.

I want to have the difficult conversation.

I want to understand why we don't agree on something.

But I also want to embrace on what we agree on.

I think when we show each other we are vulnerable, and when we show each other when we are exposed, it allows us to come forward so we can collaborate and move forward together on projects like a book, or getting legislation passed, or going to D.C.

and making sure Congress and the Senate does the right thing.

Briana: John Feal, thank you for coming on the show.

The physical copies of the book will be out in the fall.

Thank you so much.

John: Thank you for having me.

Briana: For more than half a century, one man has been at the heart beat of one of New York's most remarkable success stories.

Father Ed Lakey, known to generations of students simply as father Ed, is the longest-serving headmaster of Saint Benedict's preparatory school, leading its rebirth after a closure and helping turn it into a nationally recognized model for urban education.

Now a new book is preparing for release that will examine the hardship, hope and hard earned lessons behind a Saint Benedict's.

Father Ed joins me now to talk about leadership and what it means to shake lives across generations.

It is so good to meet you.

I have read so much about you over the years.

I've seen you in the press over the years.

I wonder what it means to you when someone says, over half a century of leading this school, that number.

What does it mean to you emotionally, not just professionally?

Father Ed: It's interesting you ask that.

When I applied to Saint Benedict's as an eighth grader, I got rejected.

Briana: U.S.

the headmaster couldn't get into the school.

Father Ed: I didn't get in.

I was a poor test-taker.

Back then, the whole thing relied on tests.

So I never got in.

The joke was that some of the people probably who rejected me wound up working for me eventually.

In that sense, when I get a chance to reflect on it, I say to myself, how the heck -- obviously for me, my perspective, it's God that created this opportunity.

When you are doing it, you don't think about that.

.

You think about today.

This one day at a time.

But the real thing for me is the fact that I didn't get in.

Where would I be had my father not written a letter?

I was already accepted in another school.

Why didn't he say, go there?

He wrote a letter to get me in to Saint Benedict's.

Briana: Now you have been a constant.

Another constant is that the daily complication, the soul of the school.

Why is that ritual -- why has that ritual been a central to you to keep going?

But do you think it gives kids that they don't get in the classroom?

Father Ed: One of the things it creates is community.

What largely has been destroyed in this country is a sense of community.

A sense of togetherness.

A sense of common purpose.

And being able to sacrifice for the sake of others.

If you want to create a community, it's important the community see itself.

Meeting every day with all of us is essential, the most important thing we do.

There is no question in my mind, the most important thing we do is meet together every single day.

And we can deal with whatever problems are going on.

Briana: Is that a big part of it, dealing with personal problems kids bring in?

Father Ed: Or communal problems.

The communal problems that we all get afflicted with.

We obviously pray together, we sing together, announcements.

There are no loudspeakers.

Voices coming out of the wall talking to you all day.

I have no interest in that.

We didn't want to do that.

Briana: How do you get announcements out in the morning?

Father Ed: We do it at the morning meeting.

Now it is much easier.

When we started, it was harder.

We had plasma screens all over, you could but the announcements there.

If there is a problem that occurs during the day, for the student who is the senior group leader to say, I want everyone to come to the compilation after school.

The whole school will come back on the word of an 18-year-old senior.

Briana: That is important to you, to let these students lead.

It is sort of a simple philosophy, but not.

You are big on don't do for kids what they can do for themselves.

Father Ed: Correct, absolutely true.

And it's important for us to be able to give these kids both the young guys and girls a voice.

Because our guys who come from the African dispersion or Latin America, they don't think their voice matters.

And the girls, I don't have to tell you about women's voice in the country being new did.

Making sure they can be responsible for the day to day and that their voice is heard and matters is important.

You have to do it in the everyday, not just one Sunday while, have a women's week.

That is all important but there has to be a women's day or are African-American day every day for our kids.

Briana: How do you protect what I would imagine is a very sacred intimate thing for you, while also letting it become a blueprint, or a model, for schools around the country?

Father Ed: The problem -- the challenge is after we appeared on 60 minutes 10 years ago, we were talking about that earlier.

I was told, when they were doing the piece, if it got on TV, be prepared to because you are going to get phone calls everywhere from Washington, D.C.

to Oklahoma trailer parks.

Briana: And did you?

Father Ed: Absolutely paired we were swamped.

We created an Institute named after one of the monks at our place who created the group system and leadership structure so we can respond to people.

We've had people in from all over the world.

And we have been in contact with people in India, all over South America.

It has been stunning.

It's not ours to protect, it is ours to share.

When we started, at Christmas time in 1972 when the school was closed, we had a plan.

We worked for weeks.

We came up with a plan.

We were going to have a school from grade nine to grade 12, just boys, of 120 students.

Briana: And you are at what now?

Father Ed: They thousand.

Between 1000 and 1100.

From kindergarten, five-year-olds to 18-year-olds.

The plan is -- we do some work with the Special Operations people in our military.

They will tell you that every plan is perfect until the first shot is fired.

Then you have to adjust.

We had no plans for any of the things we are doing.

But it got people -- it forced us to think in a different way.

Briana: Is that what keeps you going?

Recently, happy birthday in December, you celebrated your 80th birthday.

Happy birthday.

Is that what keeps you going?

Is that what keeps you driving forward and looking to move the school forward, knowing there are lots of other lives you can touch?

Father Ed: Yeah, and to know that the challenges now are not the same as the challenges 10 years ago or 20 years ago.

Life is always new, and being able to respond to the people that are in front of you at that time is what's important.

The challenges we deal with now, because of the telephone, who hangs out on the street corner now, as an example.

When we were growing up, people hung out on street corners.

Now, nobody hangs out on the street corners they all hang out on the phone.

It's really dangerous.

Way more dangerous than a street corner was.

There is a different set of problems.

Briana: Father Ed Leahy, thank you for coming in.

We wish you lots of years of continued success.

Father Ed: Thank you for having me.

We appreciate your work.

It's important at this point.

Briana: That's going to do it for us.

I'm Briana Vannozzi.

For the entire NJ Spotlight News news -- news team, we will see you next time.

>> NJM insurance group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

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♪