SSJ HEALTH FOUNDATION INC

SSJ Health Foundation aims to secure the presence of St. John Bosco Clinic for as long as there are children and adults who otherwise lack access to care. Serving as a safety-net for these families, with the goals of reducing inappropriate use of local community emergency rooms; developing and implementing programs that identify, prevent, and treat the most prevalent diseases; serving as navigator to assist patients in accessing other community services; and, delivering health education through culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate programs. Care is offered to those who fall through the gap of currently available healthcare including Medicaid and insurance through the Affordable Care Act. St. John Bosco Clinic provides a broad range of preventive and comprehensive primary and preventative health care services with coordination of continuum of accessible care offered by community partners and agencies.
Services include:
• Primary Care health examinations, diagnosis, treatment and follow up
• Routine screenings for hypertension, diabetes, breast, cervical and colorectal cancer
• Well child visits/physicals
• Screening for tobacco, drug or alcohol use
• Chronic disease management, including safe use of medications and medication compliance
• Laboratory and diagnostic exams
• Secondary Care referral management to other health care providers including specialists for
services outside the scope of the clinic's services
• Assistance with medications and prescription assistance programs
• Education and information on healthy living, diet, activity
• Patient navigation and assistance in accessing other community services

We meet healthcare needs that may otherwise not be available to the patient population served. In doing so, our community benefits from a healthier population able to access preventive care and management of chronic conditions at the primary care level. Improved health outcomes reduce school and work absences, increase individuals' productivity and contributions to the overall community .

Recruiting and retaining partnerships that offer countless hours of professional and support volunteer hours and in-kind services continues to be a key strategy to supporting our work. It is through these partnerships that we are able to increase our services.

We are also involved in maintaining a community presence on committees, initiatives and groups with special focus on representing and advocating for the interests of free clinics and those children and adults we serve. These platforms allow us to continuously introduce our work to other organizations that often lead to shared and collaborative impact opportunities that build on the strengths of others working to meet healthcare disparities.

Through active involvement of the Board a sponsor-a-patient campaign is a strategy being implemented to invite more individual and corporate donors to pledge on-going commitment to secure the clinic's presence and ability to serve all eligible patients that seek care.

Through these efforts services will continue to be offered without limiting individuals' access to needed healthcare.

As a nurse practitioner centered model of primary care we have 2 ARNP's that see 85% of the primary care patients with volunteer primary care physicians seeing the rest. Physicians in a wide array of medical specialties volunteer their time to see patients in their private offices and in the past fiscal year provided 500+ consultations. University of Miami DOCS Program adds additional specialty volunteer physicians during evening hours one day per week.

The support of the Board, staff, volunteers and physicians who continued the work and the collaboration of partnerships that provide in-kind patient care services allow us to meet the increased needs for primary and preventive care.

SSJ Health Foundation originally was founded as the Mercy Hospital Foundation in 1976. In 2011, the hospital was sold and the foundation was not part of the sale. At that time, the sponsoring Congregation and individuals committed to the mission of the foundation and the clinic recognized the need to continue the work in our community. As individuals that have been involved in Board and patient care services for many years we were able to successfully continue providing uninterrupted services to the community through the St. John Bosco Clinic throughout the transition as we have been since 1992. Throughout the separation from the hospital the community partners and supporters continued to place their confidence and value the impact that the Foundation and Clinic have on the individuals who have for nearly 30 years relied on our efforts during difficult periods of their lives.

Building on these strengths we are confident that we will be able to achieve our goals and continue this outreach work.

Over 20 volunteer physicians give of their time to support the work of St. John Bosco Clinic. We have received support from a local hospital, prescription assistance programs, vendors who offer special rates and universities who utilize our service for training of their students demonstrate progress in recruiting and retaining the individuals and organizations that make this service possible.

During COVID pandemic the clinic has been able to maintain its services through the use of telemedicine, changing the way new patients are registered and scheduling of in person visits to promote social distancing. The clinic has worked with a local hospital to obtain COVID vaccination for some of the patients based on eligibility and medical needs.

During the year of pandemic and hesitancy of some to seek preventive primary care, the clinic was able to offer over 4,000 visits and see over 1,000 unduplicated patients. These past quarters have seen the highest ratings in patient satisfaction surveys.

We look forward to continuing efforts to better serve our community.