Blog Archives
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Mobile Wellness Clinic
The Casey Foundation, an organization that works to improve the well-being of children, youth, and families in the United States, conducted an analysis of the Opelika community in 2017 that revealed areas with a lack of access to care. The foundation engaged the City of Opelika and East Alabama Health to begin a mobile medicine program to increase access to primary care within the community. First Transit donated the mobile bus in 2017, and the program officially launched in December 2022.
The mobile wellness clinic visits communities in the greater Opelika area once a week. Staff provide disease prevention resources and screen patients for chronic conditions at the designated site each week. mobile unit social worker connects patients to resources within the community through screening for social determinants of health. The clinic is funded through multiple sources, including the Casey Foundation and the local housing authority, which allows the clinic to prioritize communities with the most need.
Beyond the City of Opelika and the Casey Foundation, mobile wellness clinic partners include charitable clinics that allow referrals for patients to be seen more quickly, local schools and universities from which students work and learn in the bus , and other local community-based organizations that help the program build trust with community members.
The mobile clinic has served community members with all-encompassing care since beginning operations in December 2022. Many personal stories illustrate the clinic’s importance to the community; for example, a care-reluctant patient sought care at the mobile wellness clinic and discovered dangerously high blood sugar levels. Fortunately, the clinic staff were able to quickly intervene and saved the patient’s life.
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Pediatric Mobile Health
Hennepin Healthcare’s Pediatric Mobile Health program started during the COVID-19 pandemic with the goal of ensuring that children receive preventative care such routine childhood immunizations. The racial awakening occurring adjacent to the pandemic, which highlighted the long-standing lack of access to care in the community, also fueled the momentum behind the clinic. The mobile clinic team achieved its goal by going door-to-door providing well child checks and immunizations to children. The program since has implemented additional services, including primary pediatric care, partum care for the birthing dyad, referrals back to a medical home, specialty care or community resources for social needs.
The mobile clinic brings pediatric care to families who are hesitant and/or unable to visit the hospital or off-site clinic. Full-time staff, including a nurse practitioner or pediatrician, pediatric provider trainee, and an emergency medical technician, operate the clinic. Staff also screen each family for social determinants of health. Patients who screen positive are referred to clinics or community organizations and resources to help families with their needs.
The program is grant-funded and bills insurance when appropriate. The program collaborates with other departments within the hospital, including the information technology department, to ensure the clinic has the bandwidth to document in electronic health records. The mobile clinic also partners with local schools and community organizations, such as Second Harvest Heartland to help families facing food insecurity and school districts and Head Start Centers to help with childcare resources.
The Pediatric Mobile Health Program has successfully increased access to care by ensuring continuity of care. When families are screened for social needs, community health workers ensure that patients follow through with referrals and applications are completed if necessary. The program also decreased Emergency Department visits, which helps lower costs and provider burnout.
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 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 Transportation as a Health Indicator
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.
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Health Equity Accelerator
The Health Equity Accelerator at Boston Medical Center (BMC) originated from research and development after COVID-19 highlighted multiple health inequities that would not have been uncovered in normal conditions. These discoveries, paired with BMC’s historical interest in closing the health equity gap, fuel the Health Equity Accelerator. The program’s goal is to drive racial health equity in the areas of pregnancy, infectious diseases, behavioral health, chronic conditions, and oncology and end-stage renal disease, with a vision to transform health care to deliver health justice and well-being.
The Health Equity Accelerator incorporates three foundations of health care: research, clinical care, and community, including social determinants of health (SDOH). The Accelerator team consists of executive leadership, project managers and analysts, community navigators, and research experts. This team breaks problems down into core elements and, through research and evaluation, identifies and implements innovations to combat the problem. The team will partner with community leaders to seek insight on how well those solutions and interventions affect the target issues. The program aims to serve patients and their communities, specifically those of color, that face immense health inequities.
The Health Equity Accelerator’s strategy aims to promote four pillars to collaborate and complement each other in the mission. These groups include clinical operations, community and SDOH, research and evaluation, and policy and advocacy. The Accelerator team also identifies external partners interested in participating in interventions to help communities BMC and other health institutions share.
The Accelerator’s Equity in Pregnancy program focuses on improving the rate of severe maternal morbidity for mothers of color and the rate of babies of color born small for gestational age. Through research, the program identified gaps and developed recommendations that will help close those gaps. Another project focused on empowering people of color, who were at a higher risk for disease transmission, to make informed decisions regarding COVID-19 vaccinations.
By Amanda Jepson | Categories: | Comments Off on Fresh for You Market
Eskenazi Health has a strong belief in the concept of food as medicine, a pillar of the health system’s Beyond Barriers campaign. In Indianapolis, 41 percent of children younger than age 5 suffer from malnutrition, and in Marion County, 21 percent of residents live in a food desert. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 200,000 county residents identified as food insecure. Through the Fresh for You Market and the Fresh for You Market on Wheels, Eskenazi Health is combating food insecurity in the community and providing residents with access to nutritional and affordable food.
The Fresh for You Market, a grocery store and food pantry, is located on the Eskenazi Health downtown campus on a bus route easily accessible to the community. The self-sustaining Market is open to the public, and proceeds from sales directly fund the Fresh for You Market voucher program. This program provides patients who screen positive for food insecurity during clinic visits with free food vouchers to shop at the market. The Fresh for You Market on Wheels is a mobile version of the market that parks at a different location throughout Indianapolis each weekday. A nutrition navigator on board helps patients pick foods for specific diets and conditions, and a chef prepares hot meals and hosts cooking demonstrations.
The Fresh for You Market and Market on Wheels would not be possible without community partners. The downtown market partners with a local food bank, and the market on wheels partners with local produce vendors, public transportation, the Indiana Department of Health, and other government agencies.
Since opening in June 2017, the Fresh for You Market has been a key food resource for patients, residents, and health system staff. In the first full year of operation, the Market served 6,200 people. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the market opened to health system employees working long hours who were unable to make it to the grocery store. The Fresh for You Market on Wheels, launched in July 2023, is making its way to for access to food in a social needs screening.
