Blog Archives
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on The Teaching Kitchen
Boston Medical Center’s (BMC’s) Teaching Kitchen is a leader in the Food is Medicine movement. One of the country’s first hospital-based culinary medicine programs, the kitchen has expanded to the local food system through partnerships with food growers, makers, and retailers. The Teaching Kitchen also helps combat nutrition-related health disparities by enhancing access to fresh produce and medically tailored foods, targeting behavior change to improve health outcomes, and leading research and best practices to enhance the field. The Teaching Kitchen supports BMC’s mission to deliver exceptional care without exception.
As the largest level I trauma center and safety net hospital in the Northeast, BMC serves a community that is racially diverse—45 percent non-Hispanic white or other, 25 percent Black, 20 percent Latino, 10 percent Asian—and under-resourced, with 72 percent of patients reported as low-income. The Teaching Kitchen is clinically integrated into the medical care model, serving pediatric and adult patients through prevention and disease management, and offers programming to staff, affiliated students, and the greater Boston community. The program is funded through philanthropy and operated by a manager who oversees culinary dietitians and partners with the senior manager to implement research and population health initiatives. Managers report to the senior director of support services, and operational costs are embedded within the department’s budget.
The Teaching Kitchen is an ancillary service to the health system, partnering with departments including outpatient nutrition, endocrinology, cardiology, and pediatrics to facilitate shared medical appointments and group visits. These partnerships enhance care through hands-on learning and peer support. In addition, the Teaching Kitchen partners with community organizations like Nubian Markets and the South End Community Health Center to offer services in community settings and foster community-led programs and interventions. To encourage innovation and future practice, the Teaching Kitchen also partners with Boston University to provide medical, dietetic, and dental students with culinary nutrition training and a formal elective through the School of Gastronomy.
The Teaching Kitchen offers an average of 300 classes per year for more than 2,000 patients and staff. Classes are held in-person classes, virtually through Zoom, or a combination of both. Class surveys suggest high approval rates, and reports indicate improved dietary patterns, culinary skills, and overall health. The Teaching Kitchen already has facilitated clinical trials, and results will be published.
To learn more about BMC’s Teaching Kitchen, please visit this link.
By aoguagha | Categories: | Comments Off on Project Outreach and Prevention (POP) on Youth Violence
The mission of Project Outreach and Prevention (POP) on Youth Violence is to prevent and alleviate youth violence, while inspiring healthy lifestyles, positive behaviors, and accessible career opportunities. The program provides outreach services, educational seminars, as well as college and career readiness opportunities for local youth. Through partnership with community organizations, POP creates a safe, fulfilling and academically enriching environment for teens at risk.
POP is rooted in four pillars: public health awareness, violence prevention, health professions enrichment, and intervention. The organization partners with Methodist’s outreach program, the Methodist ED/trauma department, Vituity ER Group, local law enforcement in four different districts, and other local partners to educate local teens on gun safety, provide mental health resources, offer career guidance, and more.
POP interacts with local teens in five local schools and provides crisis intervention business cards to all youth seen in the emergency department at Methodist Hospitals. The cards list conflict resolution principles and include the website for Students Against Violence Everywhere, a youth-led violence prevention initiative, as well as a crisis QR code with resources on mental health, violence prevention, and bullying. For more information visit https://poponviolence.org/
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Violence Intervention Program
The rate of gun violence–related injuries is increasing nationwide and is especially high among youth in Atrium Health’s community. Survivors of gun violence experience significant increases in mental health disorders and high pain, resulting in higher rates of readmissions. Along with adverse effects on survivors, the health system experiences a large financial burden stemming from violent injuries. Atrium Health’s violence intervention program aims to help victims of violent injuries target social determinants of health and make positive life changes to prevent violent injuries.
The program aims to assist patients ages 15–24 years old with violence-related injuries. When patients arrive at the hospital, a violence intervention specialist interviews them to assess social circumstances. The specialist will assist with urgent needs and then create long-term plans for connecting patients with community resources to assist with persistent problems. The program follows patients after discharge for three months or longer if needed. The City of Charlotte is the main partner and funding agency for this program.
Beyond the City of Charlotte, Atrium Health works with numerous internal and external partners. Internally, the program uses tools already created by Atrium Health’s other violence prevention programs, the Domestic Violence Healthcare Project and Carolinas Center for Injury Prevention. Externally, the program often refers patients to the Urban League of Charlotte, an employment assistance program for African American men.
Since January 2022, the program has connected 23 people with job readiness services, employment placement, and secondary education. Patients also sought assistance improving access to housing, food, and clothing.
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Mobile Medicine Program
Atrium Health launched two Mobile Medicine programs to improve access to care for their patient populations. Three Care Everywhere primary care units, along with Drive to Thrive, a mobile OB-GYN unit, aim to increase access to care by tackling transportation challenges, language barriers, and lack of insurance. Specifically, Care Everywhere brings clinical care to areas where traditional clinics may not be convenient or accessible, provides resources that help meet acute social needs, and connects patients to a primary care medical home. Drive to Thrive works to decrease unintended pregnancies via increased access to education and contraception and to connect patients in underserved communities to prenatal care earlier in their pregnancies to improve overall health outcomes.
The Mobile Medicine units park at different locations each weekday based on patient need. Atrium Health strategically chose locations using a data-informed approach that paired internal patient data with publicly available U.S. census data to target communities with the greatest health needs and social risk factors. Care Everywhere unit services include short-term and long-lasting health concerns, and Drive to Thrive primarily focuses on obstetrics and education. Neither program requires appointments, enabling patients to visit at their convenience. Both programs offer additional wellness services, such as referrals to other Atrium Health facilities and connections to resources for non–health care needs.
The Care Everywhere units were primarily funded by The Tepper Foundation and Truist Foundation, among other community funders. The Drive to Thrive unit received funding from a retired OB-GYN and other community donors. Both units required collaboration with nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and other community organizations to understand patient needs fully.
As a vertically integrated health care system, Atrium Health maintains an extensive inpatient and outpatient database of electronic health records that enables in-depth analysis of health care utilization and health outcomes across the system’s footprint. The Care Everywhere units launched in fall 2022, and the Drive to Thrive unit launched in January 2023. The Mobile Medicine program is expected to serve more than 480 patients by the end of 2023. Key program outcomes include increasing the establishment of ongoing support through placement with a primary medical home and connecting patients to care and social needs support through screening, diagnosis, and referrals to specialty care.
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Sustainability Program
University of California (UC) Davis Health recognizes the importance of creating a resilient and sustainable health care model that celebrates the intersection between human and climate health. The goal of UC Davis Health’s sustainability practices is to reduce the health system’s environmental footprint by identifying climate mitigation strategies that meet the needs of patients and employees while preserving the quality of care. Areas of focus include procurement, resource conservation, transportation, expanding outreach and education to increase participation in sustainability efforts, waste reduction, and accountability.
UC Davis Health’s sustainability efforts reach beyond the health system into the community. With a focus on clean energy, the health system is expanding its solar energy portfolio and reducing energy usage in the operating rooms by replacing lights with LED bulbs and implementing HVAC setbacks. Another focus is reducing water use through operational adjustments in the central plant and a turf watering reduction initiative that stopped irrigating non-functional turfs on campus. The health system also provides an emission-free bus service, Causeway Connection, that runs daily between the hospital’s main campus and Sacramento.
UC Davis Health has multiple partners, including the Sacramento Tree Foundation, which helps plan California drought tolerant landscaping throughout the health system’s campus. Other partnerships, such as Copia, a food recovery company, and California Safe Soil, a manufacturer that uses food scraps for high-quality fertilizer, help divert UC Davis Health’s food waste. A partnership with Stryker, a medical technologies corporation, has helped the health system reduce the number of single-use devices used in operating rooms.
UC Davis Health has seen invaluable outcomes from the sustainability strategies. Through HVAC setbacks in the operating rooms, the emissions saved thus far are equivalent to taking 63 cars off the road. Through operational adjustments in the system’s central plant, UC Davis Health saved three million gallons of water between 2020 and 2022.
https://sustainability.ucdavis.edu/goals
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Sustainability Program
The Ohio State University has been working on a sustainability program for decades. In 2015, formal goals were set to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and a number of other resource stewardship goals to achieve by 2025: increasing locally sourced food, increasing ecosystem services, reducing potable water consumption, reaching zero waste, increasing energy efficiency, and developing standards for preferred products. The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center developed a formal program around 2017, and then joined the Health Care Climate Council and the Health Care Climate Challenge in 2020 to support its sustainability goals.
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is implementing multiple sustainability strategies through a small team of dedicated employees. The sustainability program encompasses all medical center facilities and integrates the university resource stewardship goals into all we do such as obtaining supplies, diverting waste, and tracking energy use with smart meters that can obtain real-time data on utility usage throughout the buildings. The medical center also prioritizes sustainability in the operating room by switching to a lower greenhouse gas emissions alternative anesthesia and incorporating low-flow strategies and diverting clinical plastics. The medical center has purchases a bedpan made of 90 percent recycled materials, integrated through their sustainable procurement guidelines.
The Ohio State University partners with ENGIE North America, a commercial electricity provider, and Axium, a manager of infrastructure assets to increase energy efficiency. In fiscal year 2022, all medical center-owned buildings decreased energy use intensity by 4.7 percent from fiscal year 2020 and approximately 29 percent of the electricity supplied to the medical center at main campus and off-site medical center locations was carbon neutral with renewable energy credits. OSU also has adapted the College of Medicine’s curriculum to include sustainability education.
Through green building efforts, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is recycling 98 percent of the waste materials from an under-construction inpatient hospital. The smart meters installed in the buildings have helped the sustainability team identify reduction strategies, culminating in a 5 percent reduction from fiscal year 2020.The medical center has reduced desflurane in the operating room by 48 percent, resulting in nearly $300,000 in cost savings over three years.
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Healthy Harvest Mobile Market
The Community Health Strategies and Innovation team at University Health created the Healthy Harvest Mobile Market program to mitigate the number of community members residing in food deserts. The goal is to provide the community with healthy and fresh food, as well as nutrition education, healthy recipes, and infographics.
The mobile market goes to local ZIP codes that are considered food deserts to serve the community members in that area. The program works closely with community members to provide health education and high-quality produce.
The program collaborates with multiple community stakeholders, including faith-based organizations, schools, and community clinics. Through these partnerships, the Healthy Harvest Mobile Market ensures that community members understand the important relationship between diet and health.
The mobile market delivers fresh produce and nutrition education to many who otherwise would not have access. Specifically, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the market delivered enough food to nourish more than 100,000 people. Since 2021, the mobile market has served around 159,000 people.
By aoguagha | Categories: | Comments Off on Diabetes Prevention Program
More than one-third of Rhode Islanders are prediabetic. In 2017, the Lifespan Community Health Institute, as part of Rhode Island Hospital, partnered with the City of Providence’s Healthy Communities Office to deliver the Diabetes Prevention Program to Providence residents. Since then, the program has grown and targets all eligible Rhode Island residents. The Diabetes Prevention Program, an evidence-based program, teaches people at risk for developing diabetes how to implement a healthy lifestyle with the goal of preventing or delaying the onset of type 2 diabetes. The program is available in English and Spanish and offered to participants at no cost.
Currently, the Lifespan Community Health Institute (LCHI) contracts with the Rhode Island Department of Health to deliver the Diabetes Prevention Program to all eligible Rhode Island residents. Free to participants, the program offers weekly one-hour sessions with a trained lifestyle coach to learn and maintain healthy lifestyle behaviors, peer support, healthy at-home meal recipes, and childcare and transportation assistance. Additionally, LCHI currently contracts with the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island to offer the program to eligible State of Rhode employees and their beneficiaries. Learn if you qualify here.
The Lifespan Community Health Institute is one of only two CDC Recognized Organizations offering the Diabetes Prevention Program in Rhode Island that has achieved Full Plus recognition. Full Plus recognition means that a program has demonstrated effectiveness by achieving all of the performance criteria related to the Diabetes Prevention Recognition Program Standards and Operating procedures.
By aoguagha | Categories: | Comments Off on Advancing Health Equity through Housing Connections
To address an important gap in true patient care, Denver Health partnered with the Denver Housing Authority and Corporation for Supportive Housing to design safe and supportive low-income transitional housing in a renovated building on the main hospital campus for patients who are elderly and/or disabled as they recover following hospitalization.
The recently implemented homeless registry within the electronic health record (Epic) comprehensively and inclusively identifies patients experiencing homelessness. Once identified, patient needs are assessed and are referred for appropriate next steps related to hospital discharge. In 2023, Denver Health will open 14 new single resident occupancy apartments that will be used as transitional housing for appropriate elderly and/or disabled patients experiencing homelessness.
The goals of this program are to provide patients with a safe place to regain independence after discharge while also reducing the health care expenditures brought on by prolonged hospital stays, which are also associated with risks to patients (i.e., infections, falls, adverse drug events), and to reduce avoidable rehospitalizations due to lack of secure housing.
Denver Health supports housing connections for patients through local partnerships with community-based organizations, including with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and the Denver Housing Authority. Denver Health is a referral partner on Denver’s Social Impact Partnership to Pay for Results Act (SIPPRA) Housing to Health Program, which serves individuals experiencing homelessness who are frequent utilizers of healthcare, jails, and other high-cost city services. Denver Health also connects eligible patients to the Statewide Supportive Housing Expansion (SWSHE) pilot program.
To date, this work has resulted in increased screening and identification of patients with housing needs across the integrated health care system, and an increase in patients being referred to housing and other community supports. This has translated into reductions in length of stay and more meaningful connections for patients.
By aoguagha | Categories: | Comments Off on ZSFG Health Advocates Program
The health care professionals of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG), in San Francisco, understand health care alone does not necessarily mean good health. Social factors, such as access to food, safe housing, and education impact overall health, as well. ZSFG launched its Health Advocates program in 2013 to improve community health by connecting families with community resources that address their social needs. These needs might otherwise not have been met outside their typical hospital visits. The ZSFG Health Advocates program aims to change how people think about health.
The Health Advocate program is a student and community volunteer–based service group that conducts standardized social and legal needs screenings for patients at the ZSFG health centers for children, women, and families.
The Health Advocates program extends the care of patients and connects them directly to resources that help overcome systemic societal barriers and legal obstacles that impact health and well-being. Through the Health Advocates program, ZSFG improves the quality of life and health outcomes for families.
The ZSFG Health Advocates program connects families with existing benefits programs and external community organizations based on their level of need. The program collaborates with Bay Area Legal Aid as part of the San Francisco Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) to provide legal advice and support to families. Families screened for more complex issues by the health advocates — family mental health issues or complicated legal challenges, for example — are connected with clinical social workers and/or lawyers from the MLP network who can provide professional support and case management.
