Serving Community Needs

No amount of medicine can compensate for hunger or poor nutrition. That’s why BayCare made food insecurity its primary focus for its community outreach in 2021 – from immediate investment in food for those in need to adopting systemic changes that should help all patients get their nutritional needs met.

The timing of BayCare’s contributions couldn’t be better, given the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on many households’ food security. BayCare deepened its relationship with the region’s largest hunger relief agency, Feeding Tampa Bay, including investing $450,000 to support 18 public school food pantries in lower-income neighborhoods across the four primary counties BayCare serves. BayCare also expanded its distribution of “Healing Bags” of food to patients at its 14 acute care hospitals. In 2021, more than 2,650 bags were distributed to patients who identified themselves as food insecure.

Two other investments that shape interactions with patients are expected to make an even deeper impact over time.

“Our goal is to make hunger no different than any other ailment that is a barrier to health,” said Lisa Bell, BayCare’s director of Community Benefit, whose team has helped drive implementation of the initiatives across the BayCare system. “Food insecurity gets diagnosed and treated – by identifying a dependable source of nutrition not just for today or tomorrow, but for the foreseeable future.”

BayCare has altered its patient record system so that case managers are prompted to ask every vulnerable, high-risk patient with significant social needs about food insecurity and record the answer. Patients are asked questions such as, “In the past 12 months did you worry that you would run out of food before you had money to buy more?” Those who answer “yes” are offered a Healing Bag. Just as importantly, case managers also work to connect those patients with longer-term food access in their neighborhood if the patient wants the assistance.

To facilitate that connection with long-term services, BayCare made another major investment to serve the community: $100,000 to underwrite West Central Florida’s own portal to a real-time listing of social service agencies. The FindHelp.org platform works nationwide and has two functions.

Members of the public can go to their local site, such as the one now sponsored by BayCare, “FindHelpFlorida.org,” and enter a ZIP code to seek out services.

Another function allows authorized users, such as BayCare’s case managers and financial assistance navigators, as well as personnel at other local service agencies, to communicate confidentially to pair patients with resources available in the community. With the patient’s permission, the patient advocate can use the platform to provide a warm introduction for the patient with a social service agency, expediting resources for the patient.

The big picture is to help patients individually and the community holistically. The goal is to better address what the World Health Organization has labeled the “social determinants of health,” which are the social and environmental factors that impact a person’s health, such as dependable access to nutritious food.

“Any health care professional will tell you that food is the first medicine,” said Tommy Inzina, BayCare’s president and CEO. “Without good nutrition, maintaining one’s health is significantly harder and no medical intervention can compensate for what we need first: good and dependable access to food.”