Piedmont Healthcare’s community benefit program, which aims to improve the health and well-being of the community through direct service grants, has made more than $500,000 in awards during Fiscal Year 2019.
 
Those dollars were spread out among 34 nonprofit organizations that serve the local communities where Piedmont’s 11 hospitals are located. Piedmont funded as much as $25,000 per organization.
 
“Our goal is to make a positive difference in every life we touch and our community benefit grant program is providing grants to more organizations this year and granting more funds overall,” said Thomas Worthy, vice president of government and external affairs at Piedmont Healthcare. “The communities that our hospitals are a part of become even stronger when nonprofit organizations, like the great ones with which we are partnering, become healthier and livelier through these grants.”
 
The grant program, which extends financial support to community-based nonprofit organizations providing specific health-related services and programs for at-risk and underserved populations, focuses on community health education and wellness, access to primary and specialty care, community-based health support services and social determinants of health. The funded program is Columbus is:
 
·         MercyMed of Columbus: Funding to ensure quality care for diabetic patients enrolled in MercyMed’s Primary Care Program, which provides primary care services to low-income, uninsured local residents.
 
In addition to the grants program, Piedmont also provides other services and programs to the community, including free lab services for its charitable clinic partners, cash and in-kind donations to nonprofit partners, financial assistance to low-income patients and robust educational programs for aspiring health professionals. In Fiscal Year 2018 (ending June 30, 2018), Piedmont provided an estimated $141 million in charity care.
 
The grant program supports implementation strategies crafted to address prioritized needs identified in Piedmont’s 2016 community health needs assessment findings.
 
Priority areas are:
 
·         Increase access to appropriate and affordable care for low- and no-income patients

·         Reduce preventable readmissions and emergency department re-encounters

·         Increase access to and awareness of cancer-related programming

·         Reduce obesity rates and obesity-related diseases, such as Type II diabetes

·         Reduce preventable instances of heart disease, hypertension and stroke

·         Support maternal and child health

·         Support senior health