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Happy New Year...
2011 Promises to be a pivotal year for Health Authority
We welcome this year in a special way. We're launching our new strategic plan, which focuses on creating a healthier community through the prevention and management of chronic diseases and promoting overall wellness. We're looking forward to working with our new governor to find ways of efficiently providing care for people in the health care safety net. We will continue to work on youth physicals, Medicaid outreach and enrollment and help people navigate to medical homes. However, there is a great need for wellness programs to complement the health services offered through health plans, community health centers and private physician practices. Moreover, we will be collaborating with community groups such as MOSES and MichUHCAN on promoting health equity.
The Health Authority will continue to be community-based, working with our Community Advisory and Provider Advisory Committees and the Primary Care Network Council, as well as implementing the recommendations of the Childhood Obesity Initiative and Integrated Behavioral Health Initiative. We welcome our partnerships with the Wayne Child Health Program and Interfaith Health & Hope Coalition. While challenges remain in the implementation of health reform, we will continue to do what we were commissioned to do six years ago - provide access for all.
- Chris Allen, Executive Director and CEO, Detroit Wayne County Health Authority |
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New governor promises affordable health care for all Michigan citizens
Health care providers, particularly those serving the safety net, are anticipating how Gov. Rick Snyder will actualize his campaign promise to ensure affordable health care in Michigan. As a candidate, Gov. Snyder said, "Every citizen should have access to affordable, quality health care." He further emphasized that "prevention, wellness, and personal responsibility" are integral to this goal. He indicated that he would "move Michigan to a more patient-centered model to achieve large cost savings, promote wellness, and improve service quality."
The Health Authority is positioned well to assist the governor in making his plan a reality. |
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AHEC announces goals
The Michigan Great Lakes Area Health Education Center has announced its program goals, which include development of the Southeast Michigan region under the direction of the Health Authority. The purpose of the Center is to increase public access to primary care health professionals in Michigan. With the anticipated demand for health professionals in the coming years, particularly community health professionals, a dedicated effort to promote health professional development has become critical. The goals include:
- Improve access to primary care clinical sites in underserved Michigan Urban and rural settings;
- Increase recruitment of underrepresented minorities and disadvantaged students in Michigan to the health professions;
- Improve the knowledge, skills, and retention of a diverse health professional workforce in Michigan;
- Disseminate interdisciplinary community-based participatory research to improve public health in Michigan.
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Community Baby Shower highlights holiday season
Young women and men looking forward to their newborns attended a special holiday Community Baby Shower on Saturday, Dec. 18, hosted by Carter Metropolitan CME Church and sponsored by the Detroit Wayne County Health Authority, together with other community health organizations.Co-sponsors include OmniCare Health Plan, Community Health Awareness Group, Detroit Health and Wellness Promotion, and Detroit Community Health Connection, Inc.
The baby shower was designed to help prepare mothers and fathers for a healthy delivery and a good start to parenting. The program included health information on prenatal care and other medical topics, health screening, foster care resources, lead and HIV testing, WIC, and a free lunch provided by "To God Be The Glory" Outreach Ministry. |
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Interfaith Coalition Update
Circles of Care, wellness programming highlight 2011 plans
Editor's note: The Health Authority established a formal affiliation with the Interfaith Health & Hope Coalition in October. Ron Beford, Executive Director of the Coalition, will offer regular reports on activities involving the Coalition.
At the beginning of this New Year, the Board of Directors of the Interfaith Health & Hope Coalition (IHHC), along with the many individuals and organizations with whom we partner, are looking forward to the opportunity to serve the community through a valued working relationship with the Detroit Wayne County Health Authority.
There are several key program areas in which the Coalition is planning to expand in 2011, beginning with Circles of Care. At the present time, we are partnering with Oakwood Healthcare and Trinity Health Systems in convening Circles of Care in the communities of Dearborn, Livonia, Wayne/Westland and Taylor/Trenton. In the past year, we have also begun a new Central City Circle of Care in collaboration with several faith-based organizations in Downtown Detroit. For more information on Circle of Care programming and activities visit www.circleofcarecoalition.org. - for the Coalition itself, visitwww.interfaithhealthandhopecoalition.org
The Coalition, along with valued faith-based partners in the Central City Circle of Care (the NOAH Project at Central United Methodist Church, Fort St. Presbyterian Church, Second Baptist Church, and St. Aloysius Church), in collaboration with Griswold Pharmacy, have been rewarded a grant from the Metro Health Foundation to begin a prescription medication assistance program for the homeless, "Centralized Pharmacy," beginning Jan. 1, 2011. This is an adaptation of a program initially begun by Covenant Care.
A second essential area of community health outreach will take place in the form of wellness - health promotion, education, Medicaid enrollment - working in partnership with established faith-based health ministries in the areas of chronic disease awareness, health disparity and literacy. The Coalition, together with the Health Authority, welcomes the opportunity to meet with and explore such possibilities with faith-based organizations that would like to embark on such an effort.
The third area will be to conduct a Health Ministry Workshop during the first half of the year, along with our Annual Interfaith Prayer Breakfast this spring, as well as a fall (November) Teach-In that will focus on the area of Memory Loss.
If you would like to learn more and/or become an active part in the identification and planning of such efforts, please contact me at 810-923-6940 or e-mail rbeford@yahoo.com.
- Ron Beford
Executive Director, IHHC
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Henry Ford launches new mobile clinic for medically underserved children
Henry Ford Health System and the Children's Health Fund have launched the Children's Health Project of Detroit. The partnership is being launched to further local efforts to address children's health care needs in Detroit. Despite some recent improvements, Detroit lags far behind Michigan and the United States in several key indicators for children's health, including poverty, low birth weight, and infant mortality. Detroit's severe shortage of health professionals has only grown worse in recent years, leaving many low-income children without access to essential health care and putting them at serious rick of lifelong negative health implications. The new program and mobile medical clinic will provide an additional safety net to address the critical level of need in Detroit, according to an announced by the health system.
Due to budget cuts and declining population, the Detroit School System has closed several schools that formerly housed Ford's school-based health clinics. Students transferred to other schools, creating a transient environment in which access to consistent health care remains elusive to many. The mobile medical clinic will allow the health system to expand its school-based and community health program. It's estimated that 1,000 to 1,500 children will be served annually through the mobile clinic.
For more information on the program contact Krista Hopson at 313-874-7207 or email khopson1@hfhs.org.
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Diabetes leaps in '10
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department announced that more people are getting diabetes and people who have diabetes are living longer with it. There is a "tidal wave" of the disease anticipated in the coming years, according to an HHS bulletin. At this point, one in 10 people has diabetes, but that is expected to jump to as much as 1 in three, noted the Centers for Disease Control. The study was published in the journal Population Health Metrics. |
Final thought...
New Year begins with controversy over health reform mandate, little change in public opinion.
Unfortunately, the New Year is beginning with the same old controversy, with criticism over the individual mandate clouding the benefits that have been instituted and will be instituted. Despite efforts by Kaiser Health News, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Faithful Reform, and other positive information sources, the news media is captivated by the controversy.
According to Kaiser Health News, Americans remain just as divided over federal health reform as they were in the weeks immediately following its passage. A tracking poll, conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in December, shows that roughly 42 percent of Americans say they are at least somewhat favorable to the new health care law, while 41 percent say the opposite. Confusion about the law persists. While 66 percent of Americans report they understand how the Affordable care Act will affect their family, 41 percent of those who stand to benefit the most from the law - uninsured Americans under 65 - say they don't understand how the law might affect them, compared with 26 percent of the insured. Members of households making less than $40,000 per year were also twice as likely as those from wealthier households to report that they didn't understand the impact of the law on themselves.
Kaiser's poll shows that one in four Americans want to repeal parts of the law, while another one in four favors repealing the law in its entirety. But one in five respondents want to leave the law as it is and the same number want to expand it. However, an ABC News and Washington Post poll notes that 52 percent of Americans oppose the law. |
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The Detroit Wayne County Health Authority's mission is to coordinate efforts to meet the health needs of the uninsured and underinsured residents in Detroit and Wayne County by assuring access and improving the health status of all people.
"It's about access for all." |
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