Many Methods, One Goal: Improve the Health of the Community
Together, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Children's Memorial Hospital share a deep commitment to improve the health of the community. Each organization accomplishes this in many ways - volunteerism, providing exceptional patient care to those in need, breakthroughs in clinical research, medical teaching excellence and advocacy.
Research that Impacts the Heart of the Community
Population-based studies are helping Northwestern researchers understand more about how to prevent cardiovascular disease, the nation’s leading cause of death and disability. Physicians and scientists from Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine are paying particular attention to healthcare disparities, as cardiovascular disease has long had a disproportional impact among the poor.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding multiple studies allowing Northwestern researchers to take a closer look at cardiovascular risk factors such as lifestyle, genetics, environment, diet and access to healthy food.
Populations can turn very quickly if you change the environment,” says Dr. Lloyd-Jones. “That happens at the community level, not one at a time at the physician’s office. The individual work is important, but the community work is what is really going to get us to the gold mine if we are serious about preventing cardiovascular disease.
Learn more about our commitment to the community.
Feinberg Students Offer Services to Underserved through Alternative Spring Break
The Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, located in Eagle Butte, S.D., sits within Dewey County, the poorest county in the United States. Working with members of the Cheyenne River Youth Project, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine students helped serve the children and young adults of this region through an annual Alternative Spring Break (ASB) experience.
First-year medical students and ASB presidents Alex Friedman and Matt Rowland managed the planning of the March 2011 trip. During their weeklong experience, students showcased their skills while volunteering in the reservation’s teen and health centers.
“We provided a safe, positive environment to play with kids and teens,” says Friedman. “Also, we were exposed to a great deal of diversity in primary care and learned what it’s like to be a physician in a resource-limited community.”
Feinberg students also spent time organizing supplies, rebuilding furniture, and cleaning the facilities, as well as leading programs that they designed prior to the trip. During a popular restaurant night, students put out white tablecloths and provided the youth with five-star treatment, acting as waiters and serving them hors d' oeuvres. Students also hosted a college night for older teens, exposing the youth to potential careers after high school and offering tips for resume building and more.
“There are limited job options on the reservation or in the area, so youth have little idea what they want to do with their life after they complete high school,” says Rowland. “By the end of our trip, though, we felt that we had made an impact on the youth in regards to the importance of career-focus, healthy eating, and exercise.”
Learn more about the history of Feinberg’s Alternative Spring Break.
Supporting the Wounded Warriors’ Return to the Community
For more than 50 years, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) has had the distinction of delivering the best rehabilitation care in the world. But we believe it is not enough to provide high quality care; we must also give back to the community. Not only does RIC provide excellent, compassionate health care in accord with its charity care policy, we fund and provide numerous unique and unfunded community benefits, including a center designed to help patients and their families with their daily needs, peer support groups, education to physicians, nurses, therapists and other health care providers, and nascent medical research. Without RIC’s support, these services would not be provided.
Among these important programs is RIC’s Military Adaptive Sports Camp, which reaches out to wounded warriors to strengthen them in body and spirit. Every night, news programs report on U.S. servicemen and women wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq. Never before have so many survived traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal cord injury, and limb loss as these wounded heroes of the 21st Century. What does it take for them to recover their ability? Top medical care, certainly. But for these driven, competitive people, participating in sports is often one of the keys to reintegrating back into their communities.
In fact, sports may be one of the first ways that injured veterans can rediscover their confidence and a sense of self worth. Through RIC’s Military Adaptive Sports Camp, 84 soldiers with disabilities have participated in a variety of paralympic sports and competed with each other. This experience builds confidence that can change their lives. Backed by grants from U.S. Paralympics and the Wounded Heroes Foundation along with RIC support, the camp is provided at no cost to the soldiers but at great benefit to the community since they return to their home towns with renewed self-confidence, stronger bodies, and a new outlook on what is possible.
Learn more about the upcoming camp in 2011.
Community Needs Forms Cornerstone of Children's Memorial's Mission
Since its founding in 1882, the needs of the community have formed the cornerstone of Children's Memorial Hospital's mission, providing accessible, state of the art medical care and treatment to children from throughout Illinois, the region and the nation; training the pediatricians and pediatric specialists of the future; researching cures and treatments for pediatric diseases and injuries; and advocating for sound public health and public policy for children. Children's Memorial's efforts in the community are especially necessary now, given the budget crises and looming budget cuts at every level of government that impact families and those organizations and agencies that serve them.
In Fiscal Year 2010, Children’s Memorial Hospital was honored to invest $100 million in community benefit programs dedicated to issues such as battling childhood obesity, violence, illiteracy, mentoring future health care professionals, and improving access to pediatric healthcare, especially in underserved areas of our city.
As the hospital that provides more pediatric Medicaid services than any other hospital in the State, Children’s Memorial’s community benefits also include $71 million in reimbursement below what it costs the hospital and its physicians to care for children insured by Medicaid in Fiscal Year 2010.
Children's Memorial is working closely with elected and appointed officials to protect the strong partnership it has with the State in serving children who rely on the Medicaid program. Children's Memorial is enthusiastic about working with the State on an analysis of five years of pediatric Medicaid data. This data will serve as the foundation for its efforts to develop new models of care delivery for children consistent with the goals of federal health care reform and the State of Illinois to foster more integrated patient care, improve outcomes and limit the growth in costs.
Learn more about Children's Memorial's community benefits programs.