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Report shows NUMC’s benefits to communityThe face of New Ulm Medical Center can be found in many areas outside the walls of the hospital and clinic. The health and well-being of the community stretches way beyond the clinic exam rooms, the hospital inpatient rooms or the Emergency Department patient bays. In fact, the medical center’s 2005 Community Benefit Report shows that the medical center supported the health of the community by providing $213,292 in various free services and programs. Programs such as Dinners for Shut-ins, Heart Safe Communities and childbirth education classes are serving community members in ways large and small. In all, the medical center provides over 50 programs, services or activities that benefit the New Ulm area. “Part of our mission and vision is to care for the overall health of the communities we serve,” said Lori Wightman, NUMC President. “Not only does that include caring for patients who walk through the doors of New Ulm Medical Center, but going out into the community and proactively promoting good health.” As a not-for-profit organization, Wightman said, the medical center performs beneficial services for the community instead of paying taxes. The 2005 Community Benefit Report divided the beneficial programs or services into four categories: serving, giving, caring and advocating. “Serving” includes community programs and services such as the many support groups offered at the medical center, along with medical education and research. Under the “giving” umbrella the report highlighted contributions and the employee giving campaign, through which many employees donated to the United Way. “Caring” includes charity care, discounted services for the uninsured and subsidized clinical health services. The medical center provides millions of dollars in health care services to patients that are only partially paid for by Medicare and Medicaid. In 2005, the medical center provided over $28 million in services to patients that were not reimbursed by these governmental agencies or were made available as charity care. “Advocating” encompasses public policy, legislative and advocacy programs. Other activities or programs supported in 2005 included: a Health Fair for the city of New Ulm, substance abuse aftercare support groups, adopt-a-family Christmas present program, sponsoring the Heritagefest Run and foot and shoe screening afterwards, teaching junior achievement classes to area schools, smoking education, senior citizen safety camp, and participation in the rural AIDS action network. Dinners for shut-ins is the single biggest benefit that the medical center sponsors in the community. Last year, almost $56,000 was spent on the dinners delivered by volunteers every day to those in need. Heart Safe Communities is another major initiative for the medical center. In 2005, almost $42,000 was spent placing Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) throughout the community. An AED and CPR class was also offered to teenage moms in 2005, free of charge. Heart health and childhood obesity are two of Allina’s system-wide community benefit priorities. A program that has been available for many years at the medical center, but has just recently become available free of charge, is childbirth education classes. These classes are the perfect example of the medical center promoting healthy communities in a proactive way, said OB Manager Denise Nerem, RN. “These classes offer so much including how to care for your baby, what to expect when you go into labor, lactation classes, and there’s even a sibling class so that big brother or sister knows what to expect when the new little one comes home,” Nerem said. “Often our patients come to us in labor or in distress. But, they know how to make decisions because they have talked about the options ahead of time. We want people to make well-informed decisions because those good decisions often result in better outcomes.” |
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New Ulm Medical Center
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