SITE SEARCH




HEALTHCARE
Healthcare Prevention Partners follow these strategies:
Promote Healthy Behaviors

Physical Activity
  • Assure that health care providers have access to behavioral counseling training, targeted educational materials for their clients and families, and an easily accessible resource for patient referrals to physical activity resources.
  • Encourage role modeling by health care providers.
  • Managed care organizations can provide coverage for physical activity programs, as well as more information and incentives to their members to help them understand the rationale for physical activity and to encourage participation.
Nutrition
  • Provide health insurance incentives similar to non-smoking discounts for healthy eating behaviors.
  • Provide insurance coverage for effective nutritional assessment and counseling.
  • Provide patients with nutrition education and counseling by registered and certified nutrition professionals.
  • Promote the use of growth charts and Body Mass Indexing (BMI) by all health care providers.
Tobacco Use Hero - David P. Wrzesniewski, R.Ph.
David P. Wrzesniewski is the pharmacy manager at the Super G/Giant Food Store in north Wilmington. David is project manager for the Delaware Pharmacist's Society's portion of the Smoking Cessation Program operated by Delaware Health and Social Services. This is one of the first State pharmacy programs in the United States to reimburse pharmacists for patient counseling activities. David recently presented the Delaware Pharmacist's Society as a model for other states to follow at the National Community Pharmacist Association Conference.
Tobacco Use
  • Increase the proportion of health care providers who routinely advise cessation, provide assistance and follow-up, and document charts for their tobacco-using patients.
  • Develop prevention and treatment programs that are culturally and age-appropriate.
  • Encourage health care institutions and their employees to serve as role model for nonsmoking behavior.
  • Provide training opportunities to health care providers on tobacco prevention and cessation.
  • Provide tobacco prevention education in the community.
Alcohol and Drug Use
  • Decrease parental use and tolerance of substance abuse through empowerment and education of parents.
  • Create resources for prevention and treatment programs and provide skills based provider training programs to help health providers identify, counsel, and refer substance abusing families or individuals at risk of substance abuse.
  • Encourage the development of a service continuum for the prevention and treatment of substance abuse.
  • Implement research-based treatment programs incorporating outcome-based evaluation in existing and new programs.
  • Advocate for zoning changes to limit the number of liquor outlets.
Responsible Sexual Behavior
  • Develop skills training programs for health service providers, which include effective prevention counseling techniques, guidelines for the selection of personnel to train as counselors and educators, and referral resources.
  • Provide tools to empower parents to take a more active role in communication about responsible sexual behavior and sensitive subjects.
  • Give videos with prevention messages to families for viewing and discussion at home.
  • Partner with school guidance counselors and school nurses to arrange parent round table discussions of problems parents are facing at home.
  • Partner with media agencies and community service channels to develop or air prevention messages and programs about responsible choices for family viewing at home.


Promote Healthy Communities

Environmental Quality
  • Educate health care providers to more aggressively screen for diseases associated with environmental hazards.
    Violence Hero - Dr. Gordon Reed
    Since 1998, Dr. Gordon Reed, a Christiana Care emergency room doctor, and the Medical Subcommittee of the State of Delaware Domestic Violence Coordinating Council have worked tirelessly to develop, produce, and implement the Domestic Violence Resource Manual. The comprehensive resource guide provides screening tips and phone numbers to help health care providers and front-line caregivers recognize and handle domestic violence issues in a caring, informed and professional manner.
  • Advocate for the use of pharmacists and other health care professionals to provide educational information on environmental health risks.
  • Require 100% compliance with DPH and Medicaid childhood lead poisoning screening protocols.
Violence
  • Implement health provider training and organizational policies to improve the identification, intervention, reporting, and follow-up of violence.
  • Promote the use of the Domestic Violence Resource Manual by all providers groups and support its continued availability and dissemination.
  • Provide more treatment programs and resources for the perpetrator and victim of domestic abuse, child abuse, and sexual assault.
  • Collect reports from the Hospital Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Program to determine the number of sexual assault cases that come into emergency rooms.
Education
    Mental Health Hero - Catherine Devaney McKay
    Catherine Devaney McKay, M.C., is the founder and chief executive officer of Connections Community Support Programs, Inc. a JCAHO accredited not-for-profit behavioral healthcare organization. Connections Community Support Programs, Inc. has helped more than 7,000 Delawareans with mental illness, substance use disorders, HIV/AIDS and physical disabilities move out of homelessness and institutionalization and into community integration, independence and recovery.
  • Promote the identification of learning disabilities and other physical and mental health conditions that impede educational attainment.
  • Serve as mentors and role models for young people to encourage their successful education.


Prevent and Reduce Diseases and Disorders

Mental Health
  • Educate and implement policies to encourage primary care providers to screen for behavioral health problems, provide mental health education to family units and citizens across the life span, and provide appropriate referrals to mental health services.
Injury & Disability Hero - Virginia (Ginny) R. Corrigan, RN
As a critical care nurse for more than a dozen years, Virginia (Ginny) Corrigan, RN has seen too many patients and their loved ones devastated by traumatic injuries, most of that were preventable. Seven years ago, Ginny began speaking for the Think First Injury Prevention Program that reaches more than 15,000 youth with the message that injury is preventable if you think first and use your mind to protect your body. Since 1996, Ginny has worked as the Christiana Care Trauma Program's Injury Prevention Coordinator to decrease injury through targeted efforts. She chairs the New Castle County Chapter of the Delaware SAFE KIDS Coalition
Injury and Disability
  • Incorporate injury prevention into the clinical practice.
  • Provide injury prevention and disability education in schools and communities
Preventive Services Use
  • Encourage utilization and promotion of prevention in acute care medicine. Provide continuing education programs for physicians and other health care providers.
  • Develop support systems, including surveys of parents and coalitions, to promote expansion of School-Based Health Centers and SBHC services throughout Delaware.
  • Increase accessibility and availability of affordable transportation services to preventive health services through Medicaid and the Delaware Healthy Children Program.
Infant Health
  • Provide continuity of infant health care during the period of application and enrollment into insurance programs.
  • Provide routine well-baby care, including nutrition, lead screening, and immunizations.
  • Provide interventions to identify and treat intrauterine infections in pregnant women.
  • Educate caregivers on the risks of SIDS and using the guidance of the "Back-to-Sleep" campaign.
  • Modify health services to meet multiple and complex needs of pregnant/parenting teens, to include emotional and mental health services, behavioral and parenting skills training, and family planning services.


Improve Health Systems

Access to Health Care Services
    Access to Health Care Services Hero - Lolita A. Lopez
    Lolita A. Lopez, President and Chief Executive Officer of Westside Health, is a leading advocate for access to health care services for the uninsured and underserved throughout the State of Delaware. During her more than 14 years at Westside Health, she increased services for thousands of people with limited resources. She led a successful $2.2 million capital campaign and facility construction project to expand from a two-exam room storefront operation to Westside Health's current 23,000 square foot state-of-the-art center.
  • Promote the provision of affordable insurance coverage for primary and preventive health services.
  • Support alternative health care delivery models, such as mobile health van services, the establishment of satellite sites, and the greater use of physician extenders to improve access to health services.
  • Develop mentoring programs between minority health professional and students to expose students to the practice of medicine and other health professions.
  • Improve the cultural competence and language appropriateness of the health care community through workforce development and policy strategies.
  • Partner with community leaders, business, government, and other stakeholders to strengthen the system of direct delivery services for vulnerable populations (e.g., homeless, migrant, undocumented) in areas where insurance strategies may not be effective




Information on this website is for reference only. For medical advice, diagnosis and treatment, consult your doctor. Be Healthy Delaware ?2005. All rights reserved.