PRESS RELEASES
Grant Boosting AGH's ER Presence
Addison Gilbert Hospital receives three-year grant for
part-time advocates in the ER
By Steven Fletcher Staff Writer
The Gloucester Daily Times. Gloucester, MA
The Addison Gilbert Emergency Room will have not one, but two
part-time advocates next year as part of a $167,000, three-year
grant. The grant used some of the data from the Lahey Health
Systems Community Health Needs Assessment, said assessment project
manager Gerald MacKillop.
"(The assessment) reaffirmed the seriousness of having some
additional services for folks suffering from behavioral health and
substance abuse issues," MacKillop said during a Tuesday night
forum spotlighting the initial needs assessment data.
The program started last year as a pilot project run by the
Healthy Gloucester Collaborative, said director Joan Whitney.
Whitney said a Department of Public Health grant funded an 18-hour
per week health promotion advocate trained specifically to help
patients with substance abuse and behavioral health issues find
further treatment once they've left the emergency room. Whitney
said finding further treatment helps those patients get the care
they need, before problems become emergencies.
"Hopefully it will help people not return to the emergency room
over and over again for the same issue," Whitney said.
Lahey Heath Systems, now the parent corporation of Northeast
Health Systems and Gloucester's Addison Gilbert Hospital, and its
consulting firm of John Snow Inc., presented the assessment
findings during the forum at The Gloucester House Tuesday. Lahey
officials also presented Rockport findings at the Rockport
Community House on Thursday.
The systems Gloucester has in place, said Noreen Burke, city
Health Director, are addressing some of the concerns raised by the
needs assessment. She said it reinforced work that the Health
Department has done with prevention-oriented programs like Get Fit
Gloucester.
"If we continue to build on (those programs) we can attack
public health concerns more vigorously," said Burke.
Gloucester's concerns, said Alec McKinney, the senior project
director for John Snow Inc., are chronic illness, aging population,
obesity, high emergency room utilization and substance abuse and
behavioral health issues. There are also significant disparities in
the health of low income residents in Gloucester and their ability
to access health services.
Transportation and cost, McKinney said, were the biggest
barriers to their access.
The data that Lahey Health Systems, and consultant John Snow
Inc. presented Tuesday night made one thing clear, said Margaret
"Peggy" O'Malley, a registered nurse and head of Partners for
Addison Gilbert Hospital - the city needs a full-service
hospital.
"There was powerful evidence that we will always need a full
service hospital," O'Malley said.
As services have moved down the line to Beverly Hospital and
Beverly Hospital's Danvers campus, O'Malley said, transportation
has become more of a barrier, especially for elderly residents. The
assessment found that 31 percent of Gloucester homes have a
resident over the age of 65.
Residents of that age, said O'Malley are more likely to suffer
from chronic diseases like heart disease, hypertension and
diabetes, and the generation beneath them, she said, is going to
hit that threshold soon.
"The demand on the acute care services is very high and will
likely grow as the baby boom generation really starts putting
demands on the system" O'Malley said.
She said the community needs to work on supporting and
strengthening services at the hospital.
Addison Gilbert, said director Cynthia Cafasso-Donaldson, will
spend the next three years pinning down what services the community
needs at AGH. The hospital will hold its first hearing on the
subject on Oct. 30 at Rockport's Shalin Liu Performance Center.
That hearing is one of two community forums the hospital will
hold each year during a three-year community needs assessment
period as a condition of the merger agreement between Lahey Clinic
and Northeast Health Systems approved earlier this year. Donaldson
said the hospital will be asking residents what services they think
the hospital should be providing on Cape Ann.
"If appropriate, we won't wait until the end of the three years
to add services that are needed and appropriate for AGH to offer,"
Donaldson said.
Steven Fletcher may be contacted at 1-978-283-7000 x3455, or
sfletcher@gloucestertimes.com. Follow him on Twitter at
@stevengdt.