We must work together to address our community’s health needs | Guestview
Many people face challenging health-related choices every day and healthcare organizations should work together, along with our community partners, to find innovative ways to improve access to care.
Providing affordable, accessible, quality care is one of the ways we serve the community, along with the more than $265 million in community benefit and care for those living in poverty provided by Ascension Florida and Gulf Coast during our last fiscal year. We want to meet people where they are.
In Northeast Florida, for example, our Mobile Health Outreach Ministry sends doctors-offices-on-wheels to communities where care is needed most. Providers on this fleet of retrofitted RVs offer free care to children and adults who need it.
The Studer Family Children’s Hospital at Ascension Sacred Heart in Pensacola is the region’s only hospital solely dedicated to caring for sick and injured children. It means parents there don’t have to travel far to receive specialized care for their children.
The children’s hospital also has four pediatric emergency locations across Northwest Florida, staffed with compassionate care teams specially trained to care for kids and ready with equipment designed for a child’s smaller anatomy. In addition to our children’s hospital ER, there are ER locations at Nine Mile Road in Pensacola, in Navarre and at Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast in Miramar Beach.
Expanding access to care
Healthcare options continue to expand across the region. In fact, we recently opened a new hospital in St. Johns County and an inpatient rehabilitation unit in Jacksonville. In Panama City, we recently opened a women’s diagnostic center – one of three that we’ve opened since June 2021 – offering 3D mammography and new technology to help surgeons more accurately find tiny breast tumors earlier, when they’re most treatable.
In Pensacola just last year, our adult hospital became the first in the area to perform deep brain stimulation for patients with Parkinson’s disease. Our children’s hospital continues to offer clinical trials that give children with cancer more care options close to home. In Jacksonville, our cardiovascular teams frequently offer clinical trials not available anywhere else in the city.
Our faith-based Mission is the foundation of all our work across the communities we serve. We urge and support collaboration between all local healthcare organizations and the broader community to provide everyone with the care they need, when and where they need it.
Don King is president and CEO of Ascension Florida and Gulf Coast, which includes Ascension Sacred Heart.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Hospitals and community should work together to meet health needs
