It is anticipated that all health care providers serving Hardee County residents will have the opportunity to participate in the three-year project.
Supervision and oversight of the project is being provided by the Hardee County Health Care Services Integration Steering Committee, a sub-committee of the Hardee County Health Care Task Force. Members of this Steering Committee are Marsha Rau, Hardee County Health Department, (Chairperson), Gary Gossman, Chairman, Hardee County Health Care Task Force, David A. Ottati, Administrator, Florida Hospital Wauchula,
Dr. Raul Palomado, Chief of Staff, Florida Hospital Wauchula, Linda Adler, Director of Nursing, Florida Hospital Wauchula and the staff of the Heartland Rural Health Network.
The goals of the project are:
· To ensure the availability of a wide array of health care services to avoid the need, whenever possible, for patients and families to drive long distances to obtain health care services.
· To reduce the volume of patients leaving the local area for care and increase the utilization of the local hospital and other local health care providers.
· To support the local economy and protect the health and safety of rural residents and families.
· To ensure that Hardee County residents have ready access to high quality health care services that cannot be provided locally by entering into partnership relationships with other out-of-county health care facilities and providers.
· To ensure access to quality health care services and that these are efficiently delivered.
· To optimize the delivery of quality health care services to Hardee County residents by developing an integrated health care delivery system.
The committee is paying close attention to health care data specific to Hardee County residents so that plans can be developed to effectively address the various issues and problems revealed by the data. The data includes but will not be limited to the following:
1. 3,674 Hardee County residents were admitted to 69 different hospitals in the year 2002.
2. 87% of Hardee County patients requiring hospitalization in the year 2002 were admitted to hospitals outside of the County.
3. Of the $64 million in hospital charges incurred by Hardee County patients in the year 2002 over $60 million was from hospitals outside of Hardee County.
4. The five (5) leading causes of death in Hardee County in the year 2002 were Cancer, Heart Disease, Unintentional Injuries, Stroke and Chronic Lung Disease.
5. Years of productive life lost, an important measure of premature death, is significantly higher in Hardee County as compared to rates for the State as a whole.
6. Non-white infant mortality in Hardee County is almost three times the State average.
7. Unintentional death rates are 77.79 per 100,000 population compared to a State average of 39.20.
8. The highest percentage of patients admitted to Florida Hospital Wauchula have an admitting diagnosis related to lung disease. Heart disease is a close second.
9. About one-half of the 416 obstetrical patients from Hardee County are admitted to DeSoto Memorial Hospital in Arcadia.
10. 1,666 of the 3,674 (45%) Hardee County residents admitted to a hospital in the year 2002 were admitted to one of the three (3) area hospitals operated by Florida Hospital Heartland Division.
The above data is an example of the type of information that the Hardee County Health Care Services Integration Steering Committee in cooperation with Hardee County health care providers and community leaders will research and analyze in order to do effective health planning which is expected to result in the implementation of measures that will serve to significantly enhance health care services to Hardee County residents.
For additional information please contact:
J. Rudy Reinhardt
Executive Director
Heartland Rural Health Network, Inc.
1200 W. Avon Boulevard, Suite 109
Avon Park, Florida 33825
Phone: (853) 452-6530
Fax: (863) 452-6882
E-mail: rudy.reinhardt@hrhn.org