New Jersey primary care clinic chosen by the Premier healthcare alliance for serving complex, high-needs patients
CHARLOTTE, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AtlantiCare Special Care Center (SCC) has been honored by the Premier healthcare alliance with the 20th annual Monroe E. Trout Premier Cares Award for providing high-quality, innovative primary care service to chronically ill patients.
Based in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., AtlantiCare Special Care Center received the Premier Cares Award and $100,000. The center provides intensive management services to the region’s most complex, high-needs patients in a completely different and unique way.
Sponsored by Premier and its member hospitals, the Cares Award recognizes exemplary efforts by not-for-profit community organizations to improve the health of communities in need. The award was given during Premier’s annual Governance Education Conference, January 30-February 1 in Miami.
The SCC was founded five years ago when a large local union approached AtlantiCare, the largest healthcare provider in southeastern New Jersey, with a request to help identify solutions to their rapidly escalating healthcare costs, driven in large part by beneficiaries with uncontrolled chronic illnesses and conditions. AtlantiCare understood this challenge and began identifying national innovations and best practices to be piloted. This resulted in the 2007 opening of the SCC, a patient-centered medical home designed to maximize successful management of chronic conditions by delivering evidence-based care in a culturally individualized way to patients and their families.
A panel of national healthcare leaders selects the Premier Cares Award winner and five finalists, all of which receive cash awards for use in further improving their programs. The Cares Award program spotlights these community-based healthcare initiatives and helps other organizations learn to replicate the best practice programs by featuring information about them on the Cares Award website.
“Premier’s mission is to improve the health of the communities we serve,” said Susan DeVore, Premier’s president and CEO. “AtlantiCare’s Special Care Center exemplifies this with the extraordinary work they are doing to make a positive impact on the lives of the people they serve. We congratulate them on this well-deserved award.”
Following are award finalists, each of which received $24,000 for use in further improving their program:
Empower Her®Sponsorship Program – Houston (www.therose.org)
The Rose Empower Her Sponsorship Program was founded in 1986 with a mission to reduce deaths from breast cancer by providing screening, diagnostics and access to treatment for all women regardless of their ability to pay. What began as a grassroots effort based out of a 900-square-foot storefront property with a single donated mammography machine and two employees has since grown into the Houston area’s leading 501(c)(3) nonprofit breast cancer organization. Now, 25 years later, The Rose operates from two community-based facilities and two mobile mammography units, directly serving 30,000 women annually across an 11-county primary service area.
Every Child Succeeds – Cincinnati (www.everychildsucceeds.org)
Every Child Succeeds (ECS) is a home visitation program helping at-risk families ensure an optimal start for their young children. ECS provides home visits for first-time mothers who are young, low-income, single and/or receiving inadequate prenatal care – factors that tend to put their children at risk for delayed development, poor medical care, abuse, neglect and low academic achievement. The program is free and voluntary, begins during a mother’s pregnancy and continues through the child’s third birthday. ECS operates in seven counties in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky and has served more than 17,000 families through more than 350,000 home visits since 1999.
Presbyterian Home Healthcare Statewide Network Synagis Program – Albuquerque, N.M. (www.phs.org/phs/programs/pharmacy/synagis/index.htm)
The Synagis Program serves infants and toddlers at high risk of contracting or experiencing severe outcomes due to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Serving children from 173 communities since 2004, their mission is to improve the health of individuals, families and communities throughout New Mexico with the following objectives in mind: keeping drug waste at 6 percent or lower per year to ensure reduced costs, complying with the recommended course of prophylaxis treatments at more than 80 percent, and reducing hospitalizations of at-risk infants due to RSV.
The Center for Body, Mind and Spirit – Elyria, Ohio (www.mercyonline.org/cbms)
Medicine is not enough for cancer patients. Their families need mental, emotional and spiritual support to make their way through the often confusing journey of cancer treatment, information and survivorship. The Center for Body, Mind and Spirit, located in Mercy Cancer Center in Elyria, Ohio (Lorain County), was opened in 2002 as an innovative way to address these vital needs in a medical setting. The cancer center also houses radiation oncology and a private oncology medical practice, all working in collaboration with the center for the best patient outcomes.
Saint Thomas Chest Pain Network – Nashville, Tenn. (www.sths.com/chestpain)
The Chest Pain Network began in 2006 with a vision to mitigate the rates of heart disease and cardiac related deaths within rural populations, and now has had more than 12,500 patients in its database from the last three years. The network is a collaboration of 18 hospitals and numerous emergency medical service agencies from 68 counties across middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky that work together to share best practices and improve health outcomes for cardiac patients. The smaller rural facilities and the larger urban tertiary referral centers work together toward one common goal – reducing avoidable delays in the triage, evaluation, treatment and transport of the suspected acute coronary syndrome patient for the best outcome possible.
About the Premier Cares Award
Premier has presented the Cares Award annually since 1991, when it was created by Dr. Monroe E. Trout, former CEO of American Healthcare Systems, one of Premier’s heritage organizations. The program has provided more than $3 million to more than 100 organizations nationwide. The Cares Award winner receives a cash prize of $100,000, while five runners-up receive $24,000 each. The competition is open to not-for-profit organizations that have been in existence for more than two years, are providing creative solutions to health status improvement, can provide documentation of outcomes and impact on a specific population, and have programs that can be replicated in other communities.
About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,500 U.S. hospitals and 81,000-plus other healthcare sites using the power of collaboration to lead the transformation to high quality, cost-effective care. Owned by hospitals, health systems and other providers, Premier maintains the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier has worked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. http://www.premierinc.com. Stay connected with Premier on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
CONTACT:
Premier healthcare alliance
Alven Weil, 704-816-5797
or
Heather McGhee, 704-816-5664
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