Healthy Communities Initiative of Bartholomew County, Indiana, Mercy Health System of Janesville, Wisconsin, and The Venice Family Clinic of West Los Angeles Also Recognized

CHICAGO, Illinois, January 22, 2004 - For its exceptional work in building coalitions to address a wide range of community issues, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital of Southwest Georgia was selected to receive one of the healthcare field´s most prestigious honors: The Foster G. McGaw Prize for excellence in community service. The $100,000 award is sponsored by the American Hospital Association, The Baxter International Foundation and the Cardinal Health Foundation.

 

Additionally, three Foster G. McGaw finalists will each receive a $10,000 prize. They are Healthy Communities Initiative of Bartholomew County, Indiana, Mercy Health System of Janesville, Wisconsin, and the Venice Family Clinic of West Los Angeles.

“The 2003 Foster G. McGaw Prize winner and finalists are inspirational organizations that truly reflect the best in health care today,” said Susan Manilow, chair of the Foster G. McGaw Prize Committee. “These outstanding examples of community outreach are improving the health of their communities and making a real difference in people's lives.”

 

“The programs of Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital exemplify the best in what can be achieved by a healthcare organization,” said Manilow. “The hospital is an exceptional leader in shaping community coalitions and initiatives that go beyond addressing immediate health care needs to tackle the problems that contribute to poor health. This is a model for community action that reaches out across diverse needs to improve the health of all citizens.”

 

Phoebe's President and CEO Joel Wernick describes his organization's approach as an “upstream investment” that harnesses the collective energies of the community to address the patterns of a problem before they become issues of care inside the hospital. “It's not enough to fish people from the river and build a hospital to make them well again,” Wernick said. “Eventually, we must look upstream and find out why they fall into the river in the first place.”

 

“We have made a commitment to upstream investment that breaks the cycle and removes barriers to health. The extent we're able to get upstream allows us to stretch scarce resources and mobilize those resources to improve the health and quality of life in Southwest Georgia,” Wernick said.

 

Located in Dougherty County, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital and Health System is a not-for-profit organization that has been serving Southwest Georgia since 1911. Phoebe is an acute care hospital licensed for 450 beds, including 32 neonatal intensive care beds. In addition, the System operates four rural clinics, two urgent care facilities, two critical access hospitals, specialty physician practices, home health services, a community hospice and palliative medicine program and an assisted living facility. Phoebe is also the region's largest employer, with more than 3,400 full- and part time employees.

 

Phoebe's founding mission guarantees care to all, regardless of ability to pay. In 2002, the System provided $51.6 million in indigent care.

 

Approximately one-third of the Dougherty County's population receives Medicaid, compared to a statewide average of 19 percent. Within the region's declining population, one of every three residents is under the age of 18, and nearly 50 percent of the region's children live in poverty. Half of the students do not finish high school in four years and 37 percent fail to graduate.

 

Illnesses from lifestyle factors and stress are among the leading causes of death in Dougherty County. The incidence of cancer in the region is 35 percent higher than elsewhere in the state.

 

Phoebe's strategies for promoting community health go beyond patients' access to health care. The strategies are broad-based and flexible, relying on partnerships, shared resources and people, and the programs change as the community's needs change. Critical to developing strategies are gathering real-time data, identifying community assets and needs, and trying to predict where future health care battles will arise. The hospital provides leadership, but it also helps the community to take ownership in building coalitions that address priority issues.

 

The results are impressive. Examples of Phoebe's strategies and programs include:

• The Arcadia Project, which started as a simple, inner city, Arbor Day tree planting event and grew into wide reaching men's health and lay worker initiatives that have touched thousands of lives. 
• Teen Dads and Network of Trust, which connect teens to support systems and programs that break the cycles of poverty, teen pregnancy and school dropout. 
• Southwest Georgia Cancer Coalition, which is a regional collaboration that has designed a model cancer control program to change the health behaviors of the region and improve access to care so that no one is left behind. 
• PeachCare project, which increased six-fold the number of children in a nine county area enrolled in state-provided insurance.

According to Wernick, “We mine for things we know are specific to the people we serve. It might be access to mammograms or high teen pregnancy rates or a lack of school nurses. For us, it's about understanding the very different pieces of the community health puzzle. But always, the goal is to get upstream to find the cause and then teach people how to swim. We believe that improving community health is as much an indicator of success for a hospital as admissions, financial statements, quality care indicators and revenue streams.”

The following Foster G. McGaw finalists were also recognized for their significant accomplishments in community service:

• The Healthy Community Initiative of Bartholomew County in southeast Indiana was recognized for its broad-based community collaboration in which the county's health care needs and resources are identified so that the area's greatest needs are addressed. 
• Mercy Health System of Janesville, Wisconsin, was recognized for its outstanding commitment to building healthier communities using innovative system-led initiatives and giving programs.
• The Venice Family Clinic of West Los Angeles was acknowledged for unprecedented growth from a small, local clinic once housed in a dental office into the largest free community clinic in the country.

The Foster G. McGaw Prize, first awarded in 1986, recognizes healthcare organizations that demonstrate commitment to community service through a range of innovative programs that expand access to care. The prize inspires hospitals, health systems and communities to assess and implement programs that improve their communities.

 

The American Hospital Association is a not-for-profit association of healthcare provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which includes almost 5,000 hospitals, healthcare systems, networks, other providers of care and 37,000 individual members. Founded in 1898, AHA provides education for healthcare leaders and is a source of information on healthcare issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA Web site at www.aha.org .

 

As the philanthropic arm of Baxter International Inc., The Baxter International Foundation helps to increase access to health care in the United States and other countries. In 2003, foundation grants totaling $3.65 million improved access to care for children, the uninsured and the elderly in 22 states, Puerto Rico and 25 countries outside of the United States.