Infographic on DC's public health statistics by GWU Milken School of Public Health
is a good excuse to re-visit past blog entries on creating an integrated public health and health care system that serves the city's impoverished, with a focus on programming, managing chronic conditions ("When the problem is defects in the structure of "the market", financial incentives won't do much good: Maryland's health enterprise zones"), and improving the city's poorly functioning EMS system ("Here's the person to hire to manage the EMS department in DC" and "Recent death from failure of DC FEMS personnel to act").
I need to check in with the progress of St. Anthony Hospital in Chicago, where they are building a new hospital but repositioning it as a multifaceted community hub, which they call FocalPoint. See:
-- Creating Community-Centric Hospitals in Lower Socio-Economic Areas: A Study in Chicago's Near Southwest Side, Summary of Research
From the Chicago Tribune article "Chicago safety-net hospitals face uncertain future amid changes to health care system: Area has 20 safety-net hospitals, which are a stop-gap medical system for the poor":
St. Anthony embarked on its turnaround after assessing the needs of its community and tailoring its services to match. It now functions as a de facto community hub, teaching language classes and hosting courses for people studying to take high-school equivalency tests. It also added health services like dialysis and occupational health and expanded its infusion, pediatric and maternal centers.
"If you're doing what the community needs, you become very valuable to them," Medaglia said. "And to continue to serve them, you really have to think out of the box. You have to think: What can we do that's different, that can service this community at a lower cost and higher quality?"
St. Anthony is pushing forward with plans to build a 1 million-square-foot commercial development at 31st Street and Kedzie Avenue anchored by a 100-bed replacement hospital.That would be a good model for what DC could do with a revitalized United Medical Center ("United Medical Center is on financial upswing," Post) which I was hoping was the basis of the now jettisoned proposal by Mayor Gray to build a new hospital replacing the current facility, adjacent to the St. Elizabeths campus in Congress Heights ("New Ward 8 hospital will be floated," Post") which could even be developed as a system in association with Howard University Hospital, which has some financial issues of its own ("Howard University Hospital bottom line: $21M loss," Washington Business Journal).
The $430 million Focal Point development is slated to be built on 11 acres acquired from the city for $1 by a nonprofit affiliated with St. Anthony. The complex is set to include two schools, retail stores, a child-care center, an indoor recreation facility and an athletic field.
Among the many facts presented are that 35% of DC's children are obese and the city's poverty rate, at 19%, is higher than the national average.
On the other hand, we have lots of hospitals...
Labels: change-innovation-transformation, emergency management planning, health and wellness planning, organizational behavior, provision of public services
posted by Richard Layman @ 2:53 PM&Permanent Link
11 Comments:
The report is war on cars bike terrorism disguised as a public health study. Everyone knows that bicyclists and pedestrians create ozone and particulate pollution that give people asthma and lung cancer, not car drivers.
DC has seen far too many hospitals close down in the past 20 -odd years- god forbid if we get attacked again and there are mass casulties here- people will die having to endure the ride out to suburban hospitals. This city used to have numerous good hospitals and now we have few for the population. It is really frightening and shows how little of the long term our leaders think or care about.
A few points:
1) We've talked about too many hospitals, it is a nationwide disease. That said, I think the case for renovating/rebuilding one EOTR is decent.
2) While a lot of the money problems at Howard seem to be medicaid contract related, improvements in billing will also help.
3) HIV continues to be a problem and you can look at what Cuomo is doing with Truveda. PrEP is mentioned but needs to be used far more agressively.
4) Best way to control young men is physically tire them out. Sport programs are good for that. So are chain gangs. You choose.
5) Taxing gym classes seems counterproductive. The poltiics of health is interesting. And and least we are getting away from the extremely unhelpful focus on "Food Deserts". rather like the "Digital Divide" it does nothing to help us understand the problem.
R-
Having worked for about five months on the 2010 Census, I'd really like to understand better the basis for the counts since I saw a lot of potential for error and misinterpretation.
Our portion--following up on folks who had not submitted their forms--was kept quite siloed from the main operation, so I'm still not sure what constitutes a genuine DC "resident."
In the past, I have pointed out in this forum that in the mid-twenty-aughts, Tony Williams had to sue the Census Bureau to get the population counts redone in the fall--when the approx. 60-75,000 undergraduate college attendees were in town--rather than June or July when they originally showed fewer residents due to the schools being on summer break.
Also, I haven't had time to check into this but back in the day, the entire population of occupied hotel rooms on Census Day was also included in the total DC population. In my 'hood alone, that would substantially skew the already somewhat-skewed population numbers.
-EE
I worked on the 2000 census, including in areas like Langston Dwellings and Carrollsburg (now a new development by the Stadium) and Clifton Terrace in Columbia Heights (and an NSA observation post by the Russian embassy).
I think the general point you make about colleges (not in this comment) stoking DC's population is reasonable, but I don't see how the hotel thing would be true.
There is no way that itinerant housing (a hotel) would qualify as residential unless it was like the old days when people lived in hotels as there weren't many upscale apartment buildings. (E.g., the description of the Wardman Hotel in the book _From the Terrace_ by John O'Hara).
People staying in a hotel on enumeration day would still say that the lived in place X at YYYY address. There is no way that a brief hotel stay would qualify as residence.
But I don't think you're right about the basis of the city's contestation of the Census to "include college students". Enumeration day is in April (4/1), when college is in session.
https://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/d02p.pdf
I remember filling out a Census form in 1980, when I lived in Markley dorm in Ann Arbor...
Cities typically challenge the Census Bureau's methodology for urban population. DC was not and is not the only city that has successfully or not challenged the Census numbers.
Hospitals.... charlie, I didn't know that stuff about AIDs, thanks.
wrt hospitals, DC has more than most cities for its population. (WHC, Georgetown, GWU, Sibley, Howard, UMC, Childrens).
That being said, I agree that having a hospital East of the River is very important from a public health and services standpoint.
I just think it should be repositioned, along with the public health and community clinic system in a way that is tranformational, like in Denver, or what will happen with St. Anthony in Chicago.
2. wrt rg's point, I was thinking of sending an email to Michelle Singeltary in response to her post about health/gym memberships as a health and cost containment strategy to promote walking-biking-transit as a health and cost containment strategy too.
Actually, it was a mid-decade census "estimate" and was done in July 2005, after all six DC colleges were on summer break. My contention still stands as far as colleges are concerned.
Here's the article link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/AR2006072101621_pf.html
I will do some diggin on the hotel aspect of census counts.
--EE
-----------------------
The city's challenge stems from state population estimates released in December, which said 550,521 people were living in the District as of July 1, 2005. That number represented a decline of about 4,000 people from July 2004 and a drop of more than 20,000 from the official 2000 count of 572,059.
------------------------
Between decennial censuses, the bureau releases annual population revisions based on birth and death rates and migration trends. In December, the District challenged the new numbers, arguing that those statistics failed to capture a boom in housing construction, the conversion of vacant properties into occupied units and an influx of people reflected in tax filings.
--------------------
By that estimate, the District argued, about 577,500 people lived in the city in July 2005.
EE -- looks like I stand corrected. Thanks.
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20170323/NEWS03/170329941/west-side-community-project-clears-big-hurdle
Bon Secours, Kaiser to do a small scale community initiative in Baltimore:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/health-care/bs-hs-kaiser-bon-secours-20170704-story.html
Wow, what an amazing giveaway!! Thanks so much.
Post a Comment
<< Home