Advocate Lutheran General Hospital played an integral role in Advocate Health Care's $692 million contribution in charitable care and community services in 2016, up $6 million from the previous year.
The hospital, in addition to providing free and subsidized care, offered several programs and services that respond to the unique needs of Park Ridge and surrounding communities, as determined through Advocate Lutheran General's community health needs assessments. Two important programs are the Advocate Heart Institute's South Asian Cardiovascular Center (SACC) and Community Collaborative Approach to Mental Health, as a partner with the Park Ridge Police Department.
"The work our physicians, nurses and associates do every day is rooted in our mission to make the communities we serve healthier," said Rick Floyd, President of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital. "We are dedicated to providing access to health care and services which improve the lives of the people who need it the most."
The first program, the SACC, is the first of its kind in the Midwest and uniquely serves the needs of the South Asian community which has a four times greater risk of dying of heart disease than the general population. In addition to providing culturally sensitive clinical care and reaching out into neighborhoods, businesses and faith communities to educate and screen for heart disease, the SACC has also worked with four Chicagoland restaurants to take a major step toward reducing the heart disease in the South Asian community. In 2016, the South Asian restaurants, Curry Bowl, Mysore Woodlands, Gaylord Fine Indian Cuisine and Viceroy of India, on average, reduced the sodium content in their food by 22.7 percent, which is significant as sodium is a major contributor to high blood pressure and, thus, heart disease.
"Nearly five years ago this Center was started to raise awareness through transformative community outreach, culturally-sensitive clinical service, and innovative research to care for this underserved population," said Shoeb Sitafalwalla, MD, Medical Director of SACC. "Our ultimate goal is to empower the South Asian community with the tools they need to build a healthier tomorrow."
The second program, the Community Collaborative Approach to Mental Health, is a $100,000 grant the Park Ridge Police received with Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and the University of Illinois at Chicago, Center for Public Safety and Justice as partners. The grant was received based on data received in response to a community survey chaired and funded through Advocate Lutheran General Hospital. The survey polled 7,000 Park Ridge households indicating about 3,800 of the households experience anxiety, depression or other mental health concerns. The survey also indicated the main reason residents with mental health issues do not seek help is they do not know where to go for information.
In addition to police CIT (Crisis Intervention Training), and public education, the grant called for an Advisory Board, which was chaired by Advocate Lutheran General Hospital's Director of Community and Health Relations, Paula Besler. Advocate Lutheran General Hospital's contribution also included developing a co-responder model. The Manager of Behavioral Health for the hospital and one of the hospitals' social workers developed a two part co-responder model that allows the Park Ridge Police Department to call the Lutheran General emergency department social workers directly when they are on a call involving individuals who have mental illnesses The calls are either for assistance in deescalating the situation or to provide significant information regarding the individual prior to the them being brought to the emergency department. The second part of this model allows for a social worker to ride along with Park Ridge police and assist in mental illness calls. When the social worker is not helping with these calls they are providing real-time mental health training to police officers. This collaborative approach has been drafted into a National Toolkit, to help with a community problem-solving approach to mental health. The Department of Justice will be releasing the toolkit in the coming months.
"As Chair of the Advisory Board for the mental health grant, it has been an honor to watch our community come together to collaborate and implement a strategic community plan to reduce the stigma of mental health challenges, provide resources and education, and to pilot innovative solutions to overall improve the mental health of the citizens of Park Ridge," said Paula Besler, J.D., CDM, Director of Community & Health Relations at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital.
Advocate Health Care's contributions included not only hospital-based services, such as trauma care, but also community health focused activities. For example, Advocate funded school-based health centers that provide physicals to low-income, uninsured and underinsured children, immunization clinics focused on ceasing the spread of preventable illnesses, and health education and screenings to identify at-risk individuals and to prevent or promote self-management of disease.