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Community Engagement
Stormont Vail Health Community Pillars
Together we invest our time and resources in our community. We partner with like-minded organizations to advance our mission of working together to improve the health of our community. Stormont Vail Health strategically invests in efforts at the intersection of community health and our ability to impact change. We are currently focusing on the following five strategic areas:
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Food Security: Make healthy foods the easy choice.
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Health Equity: Ensure everyone is equally equipped to improve their health.
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Education and Literacy: Eliminate barriers to understanding to live healthy.
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Economic Vitality: Strengthen our workforce and our community.
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Community Leadership: Supporting our community through volunteerism.
SVH Community Partnerships
Endocrine Clinic Prescriptive Food Pantry
In July 2019, Advisors Excel approved a three-year $150,000 grant to Stormont Vail Health to provide a prescriptive food pantry at the Endocrine Clinic. SVH’s goal is to enhance management of a chronic condition, Diabetes Mellitus, by addressing a major social determinant of health: food insecurity. SVH stocks the food pantry with boxes of shelf-stable healthy food purchased from Harvesters.
Patient health is showing remarkable improvement with decreasing A1Cs, blood pressure, and weight. The successful health outcomes for endocrine clinic patients receiving the healthy boxes of food led to an expansion of the initiative in the fall of 2021. In addition to expanded referral sources, SVH began supplementing the boxes with meat and fresh produce to enhance their nutritional impact and further improve health outcomes. Care Managers order the meat and produce online using Wal-Mart’s pick-up service, making it convenient for patients.
Check out the video below to learn more about this program!
Contact Dana Blindt, Director Care Transformation, for more information.
LINK Health Partnership
The Topeka Community Foundation awarded a two-year grant of $371,203 to the LINK Partnership in May of 2019. The initiative expanded with an additional two-year $431,202 grant in 2021. Five local organizations (Stormont Vail Health, Valeo Behavioral Health Care, Harvesters, Washburn University, and HealthAccess) are collaborating to improve the health of low-income, uninsured residents of Shawnee County. Together, the organizations work within, and beyond, the traditional healthcare safety net system, to assist our most vulnerable citizens in becoming healthier; this is done by addressing patient goals related to the social determinants of their health (SDOH). HealthAccess assists with access to donated medical care and prescriptions to meet patient foundational health needs. Stormont Vail Health Social Workers review patient SDOH survey responses and enhanced risk assessment scores to refer eligible patients to Valeo Behavioral Health Care Community Support Navigators. The Navigators assist patients with goal setting, support, and access to community resources. Patients also have access to nutritionally appropriate food provided by Harvesters, and health coaching provided by Washburn University nursing students.
Stormont Vail Health Mobile Primary Care Clinic
Thanks to funding provided by the Stormont Vail Foundation, the Stormont Vail Health Mobile Clinic in Your Neighborhood rolled into our community in February 2022. During the first year, the clinic-on-wheels will focus on bringing much needed health care to North Topeka, East Topeka, and Oakland neighborhoods without ready access to health care. The 37-foot-long clinic is ADA-accessible. Patients schedule appointments by calling 785.270.4440 and the clinic takes walk-ins as time allows. The mobile primary care clinic offers the same services a primary care office provides including well child visits, annual physicals, chronic care follow-ups, lab work, diabetes check-ins, immunizations, and much more.
On Thursdays, our unit will join other community units as part of the Mobile Access Partnership (MAP) adding healthcare to the list of community outreach services offered for individuals experiencing homelessness.
