Shepherd's Hope, Inc.

For 25 years, Shepherd's Hope's purpose is to help men, women and children living in poverty achieve better health by providing free access to high quality and compassionate medical care and wellness. SH is the primary access point for acute medical care and specialty care services for individuals who are low income at or below 200% of the poverty level, are uninsured or underinsured and not eligible for any government-assisted health care programs. Utilizing these criteria, Shepherd's Hope has provided over 321,000 free patient visits and medical services since 1997 and nearly 30,706 in 2020 and 2021 combined.

Shepherd's Hope operates in a uniquely organized healthcare model synchronizing and leveraging multi-faith partnerships, hospital systems, diagnostic providers, and 3000 medical and support volunteers. For every patient seen in one of Shepherd's Hope five health centers through face-to-face or newly added telehealth visits, an elaborate partnership exists among area hospitals accepting referrals (foregoing compensation for diagnostic and surgical services) and private and community health providers offering specialty services for patients who need more advanced care or attention to chronic conditions - all with the ultimate goal of facilitating the patient finding a "medical home".

Prior to the pandemic, 1-in-4 were uninsured in Central Florida. The number of people unemployed in Florida peaked in May 2020 at 1,416,421. There are now 925,730 fewer people unemployed in the state. From a recent trough of 474,337 in February 2021, the number of unemployed has now grown by 16,354 leaving many navigating medical care without the safety net of employee-provided health insurance. As a result, SH has seen an increase of 30% in calls since the beginning of the year with more acute issues like two women who recently presented with Stage II breast cancer after delaying care due to the pandemic. Over the last few months, the Heart of Florida United Way Weekly Community Snapshot report over 20% of their calls were for healthcare, this is second only to calls seeking shelter.
According to the Orlando Business Journal*, two of the biggest health-related challenges currently facing our community due to the global pandemic include less access to preventative care and more individuals seeking care at emergency departments. The two primary solutions are: funding primary care centers (like Shepherd's Hope) that provide free or reduced-cost care and expose more residents to individual coverage and ACA subsidy options.
Shepherd's Hope is committed, more than ever, to play an essential role in mitigating unnecessary emergency room visits while providing access to health care for those who are having to navigate care sometimes for the first time without employee-provided health insurance or who have delayed or deferred care in 2020. The role Shepherd's Hope plays in providing free access to care allows entire families to function more effectively with minimal

The success of Shepherd's Hope lies in its strong partnerships within the local community to ensure its free healthcare services reach those most in need. Each of the five presently operating Shepherd's Hope Health Centers is the result of a unique collaboration between a sponsoring church, local school and partnering hospital. This creative partnership ensures that Shepherd's Hope has access to volunteers, clinic facilities and diagnostic testing, all essential components to providing accessible care. The church is the primary resource for volunteer doctors, nurses and other lay volunteers who make a commitment to regularly staff a health center, which operates one to two evenings each week. A local school houses the health center by donating clinic space in existing school facilities that are available during the evening hours and conveniently located within neighborhoods with high numbers of uninsured residents. Partnering hospitals accept referrals without compensation for routine laboratory and radiology services. County health agencies provide necessary follow-up and specialty services for patients who need more advanced care such as neurological or orthopedic consultation and even surgery.
Although there are other free, volunteer clinics located in the United States, the strong community partnerships associated with Shepherd's Hope are truly unique and also serve to strengthen the community itself. For example, rarely do the three competing hospital systems in the area partner together to address community health issues, participate in joint fundraising efforts or readily share information with each other as they do through Shepherd's Hope. Another salient feature of the Shepherd's Hope model is the unity, or ecumenicalism, of the local religious communities, which have embraced this program. Shepherd's Hope Health Centers are sponsored by members of a United Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist, Presbyterian, Christian non-denominational and Roman Catholic congregation. Each of these faith communities has set aside its doctrinal and institutional differences in order to focus on bringing hope and healing to their uninsured neighbors.
Lastly, Shepherd's Hope Health Centers are located in Family Service Centers of local schools, which also house other community agencies serving the needs of specific neighborhoods. Other programs co-located with Shepherd's Hope include such services as domestic violence assistance, parenting/homemaking skills, mental health counseling, and food and nutrition advice. The co-location of these programs eliminates duplication of services, increases communication and ensures smooth referrals across agency lines. In essence, it provides a "one stop shopping" for many area residents in need.
The cornerstone of the program rests in its ability to recruit and maintain its volunteer base. During the year 2021, over 3000 active volunteers have provided volunteer services through our health centers.

Shepherd's Hope has an established history of collaboration and innovation. Since 1997, when we opened our first health center in West Orange County, Shepherd's Hope has utilized "out of the box thinking" to provide medical services to Central Florida patients who may be low-income, uninsured, underinsured and without access to quality health care. Our collaborations run the gamut from faith partners (all faiths serving all faiths) to hospital partners, to businesses and employers, to in-kind donors. Because of our ability to work Shepherd's Hope has expanded its operation from one to five health centers in the past four years, replicating the model with each new facility, sponsoring church and partnering hospital.
As of date, this uniquely organized, and innovative healthcare model synchronizes Shepherd's Hope 29 full-time and 9 part-time employees to leverage a tightly woven consortium of 3,000 licensed medical and general professionals. These professionals provide 41,000 volunteer hours per year (operating under the Florida Department of Health's Volunteer Healthcare Provider Program), three community hospital systems (Advent Health, Orlando Health and Nemours Children's Hospital), 100 diagnostic/surgical providers, the Primary Care Access Network (PCAN) and many multi-faith partners. Shepherd's Hope structure of care is regarded nationally as an exemplary model of healthcare. Shepherd's Hope operations are propelled by our volunteers enabling our administrative costs to remain low. 96 cents of each donated dollar are spent directly on patient care and services.

Shepherd's Hope has consistently striven and succeeded at improving the overall health of uninsured people while also reducing the number of the uninsured patients who use hospital emergency departments through three primary goals.
Goal 1: Expand primary and secondary/specialty services, by days/hours to serve additional patient capacity demands.
Goal 2: Recruit and retain more volunteer licensed clinical providers to accommodate additional patient capacity demands.
Goal 3: Mitigate the delay in seeking secondary medical care, by the uninsured, until their medical problem is exacerbated or advanced thereby resulting in Emergency Department utilization.

Today, 25 years after its founding, Shepherd's Hope remains committed to its mission and to bridging the expanding coverage gap to high quality healthcare while mitigating the tremendous financial implications to the community and other healthcare providers. No other model in Florida has a multi-site, multi-faith intricate system of primary and secondary disciplines in place to provide the delivery of high-quality, compassionate patient-centered care to this medically underserved and uninsured segment of Florida's population.

The significant accomplishments in year 2022 include;

• Launch of HEAL (Healthy Eating Active Lifestyle), a nutrition as prescription program to provide patients with meal preparation and nutrition training.
• Enhanced development in the use of technology.
• Launched Acute Dental and Restoration Program
• Facilitated more than 7,456 patient visits and provided medical care through expanded services in the Central Florida area.
• Health navigators on-boarded through a grant and in partnership with the Primary Care Access Network working in our centers to help people figure out if they can qualify for insurance.
• Reduced inappropriate emergency room visits and preventable readmissions, saving the healthcare community approximately $1,651,500 and,
• Increased impact on better patient health outcomes, through diet and active lifestyle having systemic change on health and lifestyle

Over the past couple of years, Shepherd's Hope has adapted programs and services to continue to serve our patients at a time when they are in the most need.

• With the addition of telehealth, expanded health center hours and new community partnerships, SH has taken a new approach by retooling its clinical operations during COVID-19.

We've also;
• Launched Covid-19 Testing sites in Orange and Seminole counties
• Launched Covid-19 Antibody testing sites
• Continued providing mammogram services
• Flu shot clinics to patients, staff and volunteers