In 2013, the program delivered 70,000 pounds of food, or 55,000 meals, to local shelters and food pantries. The lucky residents at one shelter even got a lobster dinner, thanks to a local casino that donated its food surplus.
Food scarcity screenings
Last year, the health system’s providers began to screen for food insecurity as patients presented to their office or the hospital. Employees were passionate about the cause, donating $65,000 of their own money to kickstart the screening program.
Providers were trained to ask patients simple questions to assess food scarcity, such as “within the last 12 months, have you been worried your food would run out before you could buy more?”
Patients who are identified as having hunger issues are connected to community resources, and inpatients at risk are given an emergency food supply upon discharge. ProMedica has also received approval to accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program applications, which saves those eligible for the program from making a separate trip to a state department of health office to apply. It also hosts a WIC program office.
Numerous at-risk patients have been identified and helped because of the screenings, including an elderly man whose “younger, 65-year-old girlfriend” took all his money, leaving him with just $10 a week for food, which he spent on three frozen dinners that he stretched throughout the week. Embarrassed by the situation, the man didn’t tell anyone about his lack of food until a screening identified him as in need of better access to food.
ProMedica is currently in talks with a retail pharmacy chain to begin hunger screenings at its locations nationwide.
As one soon-to-retire physician told CMO Lee Hammerling, MD, helping to implement the anti-hunger programs were his “proudest moment working for us in 33 years.”
Expanding summer food programs
For many children, at-school meals are their only consistent food source. In the summer, they lose this safety net.
When ProMedica became aware Lucas County, where it’s located, served just 1,500 summer meals to children in 2011, it partnered with the National Alliance to End Hunger to expand the program.
“We reached out to partners,” asking them to identify the best sites for the program and to promote it to families, says Barbara Petee, chief advocacy and government relations officer at ProMedica. “We have convening power that a lot of other organizations don’t in a community.”
The following summer, the County served 45,000 meals; the number jumped to 100,000 for Summer 2013.
Advocacy efforts
Since beginning its anti-hunger efforts, ProMedica has become a recognized advocate for improving hunger issues nationally. In March 2012, it hosted a hunger summit for 100 community partners to better organize anti-hunger work in the Toledo metro area. Last November, the system was approached by the USDA to host a regional summit, which took place May 14th in Chicago. The summit, a partnership between ProMedica, the National Alliance to End Hunger and the USDA, brought together more than 100 anti-hunger advocates to share best practices.
Beyond hunger
For ProMedica, its work fighting hunger fits within its mission of advancing health and wellbeing — and new business model around population, preventive health — but it won’t stop its efforts there.
The system plans to continue to work to bring groups together to impact social determinants of health within the community. “We want to help connect the dots more broadly in our community,” said Mr. Oostra.
“We’re going to continue to push forward,” says Mr. Oostra. Up next: The system plans to get involved in local economic development efforts.
“This is an opportunity for great collaboration,” he adds. “This isn’t something a health system should do by itself.” So while a health system doesn’t have to go it alone, it should make use of its community and political capital to help advance efforts that benefit the community.
“We were always clinically focused, but now we’re more socially focused,” says Mr. Oostra.
ProMedica’s new social focus has created a big positive impact for the Toledo community, and the system hopes encouraging other health systems to take on these issues will lead to nationwide improvements in the social issues affecting our nation’s health.
