Building a network of health care


  • May 20, 2015
  • /    Reggie Dogan
  • /   training-development
Small in stature, Joy Sharp says she has a big heart. Sharp has a bit of courage, too. As a Methodist Healthcare CHN navigator in Memphis, Sharp has run into some dangerous people in dangerous places. She became an ally of a gang leader who helped her gain access to one of the toughest areas in Memphis. “In order to care about a community, you have to be everything for the community,” Sharp said. “They're not just patients to me. They're people, and you have to have a heart to care for people. Sharp and the Rev. Bobby Baker, director of Faith Community Partnerships in Memphis, brought the Memphis Model Adaptation Seminar to a network of representatives from area hospitals, social agencies and churches on Wednesday at the Hilton Garden Inn on Airport Boulevard. Bob Greene, co-founder of Influence Pensacola, a community development arm of the Pensacola Bay Baptist Association, said his group and vice presidents at Sacred Heart, West Florida and Baptist hospitals had been meeting over the past year to talk about creating a network much like the Memphis model in Pensacola. “What’s the one thing we could work on together to move the needle? Community case management,” said Greene. “One thing led to another, and here we area." In the two-hour seminar, Baker and Sharp laid out the plan, process and procedure of the health network. Baker can give witness to what happens when faith-based groups link with healthcare providers. Baker oversees a burgeoning healthcare network that provides health and wellness services for thousands of people with the hope of improving the quality of life — and health —  in his community. “We want to complete the web of trust to prevent people from falling through the cracks,” said Baker, pastor of Divine Faith Church in Memphis. “Most people are suffering not because of a lack of resources but because of the lack of access to them.” The network came together in 2005 when Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Memphis’ largest hospital system, joined with local churches to create Congregational Health Network, or CHN. It began with 12 churches and has grown to more than 500 congregations. Through the network, the hospitals have registered more than 21,000 people and spread the messages promoting prevention, screening and health education. The network has earned attention in national public health circles, and from the Obama administration, for reducing the cost of care and improving outcomes for low-income patients. The Memphis model offers a blueprint for hospitals dealing with similar problems in health care. No community is the same, so the Memphis model may work differently in Pensacola, but here’s how the Congregational Health Network operates: The director oversees 11 navigators who have training in fields such as nursing and community organizing. A couple of unpaid volunteers at each church serve as “liaisons” and work with the navigators to promote healthy living in the congregation and work with the sick. But the success in making the program work will depend on hospitals rethinking their role in the communities they serve. In the Memphis model, the hospital reached out to the community. Baker envisioned a reverse model. “I believe a group of pastors can go to a hospital and say, ‘We need you, and we have enough social capital to make a difference outside the walls of the hospital,’” Baker said. “I think that can work.” Meghan McCarthy, director of Baptist Health Care’s Healthy Lives, was impressed with the presentation. Baptist already laid some groundwork in community outreach. The system started a health initiative, Health Challenge, involving than 20 churches to help give access to health and wellness services. “We need to be building partnerships,” McCarthy said. “We have to work together to move the needle.” CHN, Influence Pensacola and Baptist Hospital met after the seminar to talk more about partnerships and what can be done to start a health network in Pensacola. “What would it look like to create a congregational model in Pensacola?” said Kim Johnson, Influence Pensacola co-founder. “This it not an end, but a beginning.”
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