Ninth Annual Monroe E. Trout Premier Cares Award
Descriptions and contact information for award recipient, finalists and semi-finalists
Compiled January 2001; Updated May 2005
Award recipient
Presbyterian Healthcare System – Vickery Meadow Healthy Community Initiative
Dallas, TX
Presbyterian Healthcare System (PHS) has been improving the health of the Dallas community since 1966. The flagship campus, Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, is located in the Vickery Meadow neighborhood, an area of high crime and poverty. After a 1991 needs assessment, the PHS Healthy Community Initiative was launched to improve the neighborhood’s health status by building the community’s capacity to heal itself and leverage community resources.
PHS partners with 75 other groups and believes individual health arises from the health of a community. Funding is provided by hospital operations, the Foundation, community partners, and grants. In addition to three full-time staff, hospital employees may use up to 16 hours of work time to volunteer in the community each year.
Contact:
Elsa Chavez, Director of Community Outreach
214.345.7979
vmidsmit@swbell.net
Presbyterian Hospital Dallas
8820 Walnut Hill Lane
Dallas, TX 75231
www.vickerymeadow.org
Finalists
Child, Home and Community Prenatal and Parenting Continuum
Doylestown, PA
The Child, Home and Community Prenatal and Parenting Continuum provides innovative care and instruction to 800 pregnant and parenting adolescents each year. Since 1980, this program has served more than 5,000 young parents and their children. The program is offered in nine local hospitals and includes on-site programs in 11 school districts. The program offers links to 65 federal, state, and county organizations to ensure appropriate delivery of service to each parent and child. The primary sources of funding are the Bucks County and North Penn United Way, Bucks County Children and Youth, and The William Penn and Philadelphia Foundations, along with the Center for Communities and Schools, a Pennsylvania Department of Education initiative.
Contact:
Beth Styer, Executive Director
215.348.9770
beth045@aol.com
144 Wood Street
Doylestown, PA 18901
www.chcinfo.org
Communicare, Inc.
Columbia, SC
Many working poor cannot afford medications when they become ill. This is a special problem for those suffering from a chronic disease such as diabetes, where lack of medication leads to more visits to the emergency room and more days in the hospital. Communicare distributes donated pharmaceuticals through a network of pharmacists, doctors, and hospitals across South Carolina. The organization saves the healthcare system millions of dollars in reduced ER visits and hospital stays. Patients have greater access to care and improved quality of life.
Contact:
Kenneth Trogdon, Executive Director
803.933.9183
drease@commun-i-care.org
P.O. Box 186
Columbia, SC 29202
www.commun-i-care.org
Grady Health System Infectious Disease Program
Atlanta, GA
The Infectious Disease Program (IDP) provides comprehensive care and services to children, youth, and adults in Atlanta, Georgia, who are living with HIV/AIDS. Established in 1986, the IDP provided care to more than 4,200 clients in more than 51,000 visits during 1999. Of the clients served, 72 percent are African-American, 77 percent are 30-49 years of age, and 71 percent fall below 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Funding is provided primarily through grants from Ryan White Care Act and the State of Georgia.
Contact:
Jeffrey Lennox, M.D.
Grady Health System
341 Ponce de Leon Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30308
http://www.gradyhealthsystem.org/idc.asp
Mount Carmel Community Outreach Program, “Door to Door”
Columbus, OH
Increasing the community’s immunization rate is one of the safest and most effective preventive measures to reduce the incidence of infectious disease. Door to Door, a unique grassroots approach to healthcare and social service, inspires people from all areas of our community to collaborate for healthy change. Since its inception in 1995, Door to Door has served more than 6,000 of its neediest neighbors. In 1995, the year of the first Door to Door effort, the immunization rate in Franklin County for those two years and older was 40 percent. Today, it’s 78 percent. Originally intended as a means to reach under-immunized children, the project has grown to serve adults and seniors with tetanus and pneumonia vaccines and provides free school physicals. Funding is provided through Mount Carmel Foundation and other community partners.
Contact:
Joy McMenemy-Parker, RN, Director
616.234.4201
jparker@mchs.com
854 W. Town Street
Columbus, OH 43222
www.mountcarmelhealth.com
Semi-finalists
Center for Collaborative Planning, Women’s Heath Leadership Program
Sacramento, CA
In 1995, Women’s Health Leadership (WHL), a program of the Center for Collaborative Planning (CCP), held its inaugural class of emerging women leaders from grassroots communities in California. CCP is a center of the Public Health Institute, a non-profit organization founded in 1964 and supported by the James Irvine Foundation and the California Endowment. Women’s Health Leadership works to build the leadership capacity of non-traditional women leaders from underserved communities across California to improve women’s health and alleviate health disparities. Program participants use existing resources to develop innovative projects that directly address the health disparities in their communities. Since program inception, a statewide network of 300 women leaders linking urban, rural and underserved communities and resources has emerged.
Contact:
Connie Chan Robinson, Executive Director
916.498.6965
connie@connectccp.org
1401 21 st St., Suite 360
Sacramento, CA 95814
www.connectccp.org
Center for Healthy Communities
Dayton, OH
The Center for Healthy Communities is a community academic partnership committed to improving primary care service for the underserved members of Dayton, Ohio. Sinclair Community College partners with the Dayton community health advocates (CHAs) to link urban African-American and Appalachian community members to existing healthcare services. The program employs 10 CHAs, a supervisor and a secretary. It is primarily supported by the Ohio Department of Human Services, the Susan B. Komen Foundation, and the American Heart Association. CHAs visit neighbors in their homes to share information, provide health education and referral services and help community members access needed services. During the past eight years, community health advocates have assisted more than 20,000 community members, providing health education services and linking people to medical homes.
Contact:
Kate Cauley, Director
937.775.1114
Katherine.cauley@wright.edu
140E Monument Avenue, Room 315
Dayton, OH 45402
www.med.wright.edu/chc/index.html
Children’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Children’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center (CDTC) has created an exceptional system of community-based services for the most vulnerable children in Broward County, Florida. The center provides medical care, comprehensive case management, and other services to medically compromised and underserved children in the community. Established in 1983 to provide care to infants referred by south Florida hospitals, a broad spectrum of clients now regards the center as its medical home. CDTC has evolved into a comprehensive system of coordinated healthcare and compassionate social services. An extensive network of supportive community agencies collaborates to provide quality diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. CDTC responds to more than 8,000 children with developmental deficits or chronic medical conditions annually. It is self-supported by grants, contracts, donations, and Medicaid.
Contact:
Susan Widmayer, Director
954.728.8080
swidmayer@nbhd.org
1407 S. Federal Highway
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
Coleman Community Health Center
LaGrange, GA
A division of West Georgia Health System in LaGrange, Coleman Community Health Center (CCHC) was launched in November 1997 as a combined diabetes center, nutrition center and rural health clinic. Its purpose has been to provide health enhancement programs to improve the health of West Georgia’s large diabetic population as well as the area’s general population. Equally important, CCHC was created to offer ready access to primary care for the medically underserved population of Troup and surrounding Georgia Counties.
Housed in a former library donated by the LaGrange-based Callaway Foundation along with matching funds for building renovation, CCHA serves a 12-county area of West Georgia and East Alabama. The center, which is staffed part-time by seven West Georgia Health system employees, reached more than 10,500 people within its first two years of operation. Programs include diabetes self-management, weight management, in-house mini-mart tours, healthy cooking classes, breast-feeding, childbirth preparation, exercise classes and primary healthcare.
Contact:
Karen Wingard, Administrative Director
706.812.2468
info@wghs.org
701 Lincoln Street
LaGrange, GA 30240
www.wghs.org/cchc.html
Guilford County Coalition on Infant Mortality, Adopt-A-Mom Program
Greensboro, NC
The Adopt-A-Mom Program, which is sponsored by the Guilford County Coalition on Infant Mortality, was developed in 1991 for medically underserved pregnant women in Guilford County, North Carolina. The program coordinates prenatal care for low-to-medium-risk pregnant women who are not eligible for Medicaid and do not have private insurance to cover the cost of prenatal care. Program funding comes from grants and donations, and more than 80 volunteers work collaboratively with seven local obstetricians. The physicians provide prenatal care for a flat fee of $400 per patient, which is paid by the Coalition on Infant Mortality. The local health department employs two staff members to administer the program and provides office space, benefits and salary. Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Spectrum Laboratory Network, Labcorp, and Genecare provide lab analyses at a discount or at no cost to program participants. Volunteers serve as mentors, and churches and civic organizations donate money and essential baby items.
Contact:
Charmaine Purdum, Coalition Coordinator
336.641.6775
877.684.6955
1100 East Wendover Avenue
Greensboro, NC 27405
www.co.guilford.nc.us/government/publichealth/services/fpmat.html
Mental Health Association of the New River Valley, Pro Bono Counseling Program
Blacksburg, VA
The Pro Bono Counseling Program is a community collaborative that provides free mental healthcare to low income, uninsured people in rural southwestern Virginia (Floyd, Giles, Montgomery and Pulaski counties and the city of Radford). After 18 months of community planning, the program began serving clients in May 1998. Volunteer counselors and psychiatrists serve qualified clients, and 40 percent of all mental health professionals in the area are program volunteers. To date, 170 clients have been treated, and data demonstrate that the program is significantly impacting both their symptoms and functioning. The program, which is staffed by one paid employee and volunteers, is highly cost-effective. A grant from the Carilion Community Health Fund pays for one-third of the program.
Contact:
Amy F. Stephens, Executive Director
540.951.4990
800.559.2800
mhainfo@mhanrv.org
303 Church Street
Blacksburg, VA 24060
www.mhanrv.org