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Community Services at Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Throughout its distinguished 140-year history, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and its predecessor institutions have been dedicated to caring for the community: keeping people healthy, providing care when they're not, curing them when possible, and giving them access to some of the country's finest physicians and most up-to-date medical knowledge. Our mission statement says, "We seek to improve the health of the communities we serve by delivering a broad range of services with sensitivity to the individual needs of patients and their families." Caring for the community is what we do.
From the beginning, Northwestern Memorial has provided healthcare for everyone, regardless one's ability to pay. In fiscal year 2006 alone, the hospital provided more than $229.8 million in charity care, other un-reimbursed care, and community benefit.
Service to the community, however, means much more than that figure alone. Some of our proudest community benefit accomplishments include:
- Developing innovative community partnerships designed to improve the health and quality of life of the city's medically underserved populations.
- Giving $1 million each year to the Community Services Expansion Fund to provide specialty care at partnering community health clinics.
- Providing free health care, psychiatric services and dental care to formerly homeless people and residents of the Lawson YMCA at the James and Catherine Denny Primary Care and Preventive Medicine Center.
- Sponsoring community programs and classes to promote health and wellness.
- Providing on-the-job training for at-risk community members.
- Mentoring local students through youth programs that expose them to careers in healthcare.
- Operating a state-of-the-art Health Learning Center for patients and family members who want to learn more about their health.
- Fostering a culture of philanthropy that enables employees and staff to fulfill Northwestern Memorial's charitable purpose through volunteerism, advocacy, and other community engagement.
