United Health Foundation Positively Impacts The Health Of DC Children
As Washington, D.C. children and families return to school, Children’s National, enabled by a partnership with the United Health Foundation, has been hard at work over the past year to ensure students are ready to learn. The Children’s mobile unit is helping better address the issue of absenteeism due to health issues by bringing care directly to families in Wards 7 and 8, as well as connecting them with needed services.
Dr. Hope Rhodes, Medical Director of Children’s National THEARC and its Mobile Health Program recently joined Good Morning Washington to discuss this partnership. Last year, the United Health Foundation awarded a three-year, $3.4 million grant to Children’s National Hospital to improve access to health care for school-aged children in Washington, D.C.’s most under-resourced communities.
Enabled by a grant partnership with the United Health Foundation, this program brings together a team of school nurses in D.C. Public Schools, community health workers and mobile medical services. The program reduces school absenteeism among chronically absent students by connecting families to health supports and social services. Children are receiving well-child visits, including vaccinations and vision, hearing, behavioral health and developmental screenings.
Through telemedicine, community health workers are connecting children and families to specialists to address behavioral health, asthma and other pressing health needs. Since the start of the program 900 children have been brought up to date on delayed vaccinations. The DCPS student population is also nearing a 0 hospitalization rate for diabetes complications. To learn more about this, and other great programs that are helping the community visit www.unitedhealthgroup.com/what-we-do/building-healthier-communities/our-foundations.html
