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Primary Health Care  Kids Kare  Living with Diabetes  Compassionate Partner Initiative

About Mission of Mercy

Mission of Mercy-Arizona Mobile Clinic is a medical outreach program with a mission to restore the dignity of patients without health insurance by making quality primary health care available and accessible at no charge, to that segment of the Maricopa County, Arizona population that frequently “falls through the cracks” and cannot find healthcare.  Through its mobile clinic, MOM-AZ has developed an innovative model of “bringing the doctor to the people” at three locations in the Valley. In the past 10 years (through December 31, 2006)  MOM-AZ has provided 121,833 patient visits and provided 115,564 free prescriptions to 30,954 patients with both acute and chronic health needs.  MOM-AZ has become the “family doctor” for patients who have no other source of help and no where else to turn.  We have learned that a primary care model better meets the needs of our patients than the urgent care model we used in our earlier years.  In an urgent care model the goal is to stabilize and see as many patients as possible.  With a primary care model we are able to spend more time with patients and to promote, educate and address their overall healthcare in the process of treating the problem that brought them to our clinic.  We can serve our patients at a per-patient cost that is a fraction of what people would pay to see a private practice physician and we do it without any government funding because of the cadre of nearly 230 skilled and caring medical and lay volunteers who donate their time (valued at $350,000) to staff our clinics.

Over 50% of MOM-AZ’s patients are diabetic or pre-diabetic.  Of these patients, 85% are minority, overwhelmingly Latino.  We are now diagnosing children as young as 7 with Type II Adult Onset diabetes. 

Access to Care – Providing a Continuum of Care

Under the umbrella of our Access to Care “Healthy Choices ~ Healthy Families” program, we provide compassionate, quality primary health care to all ages through the following four components:

1. PRIMARY HEALTH CARE:  serving the medical and prescription needs of the uninsured and underinsured.

2. KIDS KARE: serving the specialized needs of children ages 18 and under who have no access to health care.

3. LIVING WITH DIABETES:  we serve the on-going monitoring, prescription and education needs of patients with diabetes.

4. COMPASSIONATE PARTNERS INITIATIVE:  serving the needs of our patients who require specialized care and diagnostic services not available at our clinic through a network of pro-bono health care providers.

We are fully equipped to diagnose, treat and provide prescriptions for maladies ranging from acute conditions to chronic illnesses.  Mission of Mercy’s on-site formulary contains over 220 types of prescription medications. 

Access to Care – Care Without Barriers

Mission of Mercy has a successful track record of providing compassionate, holistic and cost-effective care to Maricopa County’s uninsured.  Our services contribute to the overall health of the community by sharing in the care of the most vulnerable population and reducing the strain on an already overly-taxed and inadequate health care network.  We are the only totally free mobile medical clinic serving Maricopa County’s uninsured working poor and homeless persons of all ages with no sliding scales or co-pays.  During the first half of 2006, Mission of Mercy provided over 2,500 patient visits – an average of 64.5 patient visits per clinic day. In 2005, over 4,000 patients were treated during 9,488 patient visits, a 10.8% increase over 2004 patient visit numbers.  (it sounds like there were far more patient visits in 2005 than 2006???) Since opening in fall of 1997, Mission of Mercy has provided 85,343 patient visits and dispensed 111,655 prescriptions to 35,634 patients!

	4th Qtr.	2006 Totals	Since Inception
Arizona Clinics:	Patients/Visits	Patients/Visits	Patients	Visits
Mesa, AZ	452 / 606	1,680 / 4,303	15,125	36,049
Maryvale, AZ	216 / 367	594 / 1,467	7,136	14,779
Phoenix, AZ	528 / 797	1,551 / 3,720	12,941	32,518
TOTAL	1,296 / 1,844	4,125 / 10,121	36,930	121,833

Access to Care – Kids Kare

One third of all our patients are children under the age of 18. The Kids Kare component of our program serves the medical and prescription needs of our most vulnerable patients.

Through Kids Kare component of our Access to Care program, we provide children ages 18 and under with free check-ups, prescription medications, nutrition guidance and the prompt treatment they need to grow strong, healthy bodies.  We also offer disease prevention education that encourages healthy nutrition and physical activity to prevent the onset of chronic conditions, including diabetes, as well as manage chronic childhood illnesses such as asthma.  A specialized database is used to evaluate our education programs.

About 1.6 million of Arizona’s citizens went without health insurance in 2001 and 2002.  Thirty-one percent of them are children and youth under the age of 18.  Despite the critical need for affordable healthcare, Mission of Mercy is the only nonprofit providing free mobile health care for uninsured families in Maricopa County.  We serve each patient for a cost of $55.  Your contribution will provide healthcare and prevention education for approximately 454 children.

Other major funders that have given money towards Kids Kare include Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, The Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation, Thunderbird Charities, Board of Visitors, BHHS Legacy Foundation, Nina Mason Pulliam Foundation, and Catholic Healthcare West.

“Living With Diabetes” Education and Disease Management Program 

Promotes Healthy Choices and Healthy Families

Our work to prevent, manage and treat the chronic conditions of the working poor and uninsured is coordinated under the umbrella of our Access to Care Program.

Prevention:  Through our LIVING WITH DIABETES program, begun in 2005, we serve the on-going monitoring, prescription and education needs of patients with diabetes.  This disease management/education program combines best-practices education with on-going health maintenance for our patients with diabetes including free glucometers and patient testing strips.  The goal of the program is to enable patients with diabetes to achieve better control of blood sugar levels and prevent complications associated with diabetes through implementation of on-site disease management and education programs. As part of our primary healthcare service, we treat, monitor and encourage participation in our “Healthy Choices ~ Healthy Families” program which addresses the issues of good nutrition and physical activity as a contributing factor to thwarting the onset and progression of diabetes.

The first year’s results demonstrated the importance of the additional education services we offer. In 2005, participants who completed all 5 education classes had a 1.7% reduction in A1C levels. We intend to expand this program in the coming year to serve additional chronically ill patients suffering from diabetes. 

Management: Accurate PATIENT TRACKING is imperative when treating the chronically ill and when using outside referrals.  Through a grant from St. Joseph Hospital & Medical Center we now have state-of-the-art software technology to track patient diagnosis, treatment, referrals, participation in education programs, and health changes in response to treatment and education plans.

Compassionate Partnership Initiative

Compassionate Partners Initiative – Is a  newly created referral network of local health care providers and service organizations who offer our patients services free of charge. When specialized care, lab tests, or other services are needed (including surgery and in-patient hospital care), our physicians are now able to refer our patients to the following Compassionate Partners:  Chandler Regional Hospital, Mercy Gilbert Hospital, Scottsdale Healthcare (Osborn), St. Joseph Hospital & Medical Center, Sonora Quest Laboratories, McKesson Medical/Surgical, Midwest College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine and a cadre of private practice specialty physicians who agree to treat Mission of Mercy patients within the scope of their private practices.

Patient Care Tracking - Accurate patient tracking is imperative when treating the chronically ill and when using outside referrals.  Through a grant from St. Joseph Hospital & Medical Center we now have state-of-the-art software technology to track patient diagnosis, treatment, community health trends, referrals and patient progress and outcomes.  We routinely share this information with other community/public health providers to support a “continuum of care” network within Maricopa County.

The outcomes and benefits of successful implementation of this goal are significant. 

• MOM-AZ doctors will be able to serve more patients because they will have an effective, efficient and established patient referral system rather than the labor-intensive process of case-by-case patient referrals to other healthcare providers each time a service is needed. 
• Health care partners will be able to quantify their role in improving the health status of the community as well as fulfilling their mission of promoting a healthier lifestyle that reduces suffering and improves patients’ quality of life.  These partnerships may enable them to increase their funding opportunities and expand their services. They will also benefit from positive media exposure that their partnership with MOM-AZ will generate.
• The creation of an efficient network of pro bono health care providers where expectations are clearly defined and patients are appropriately referred makes more efficient use of everyone’s time, reduces per patient costs, improves patient health outcomes and saves lives. 
• Early care is less expensive to treat.  Building this pro bono network of health care providers will reduce the likelihood that patients will require expensive emergency room services, which is the most expensive type of health care.  Unnecessary emergency room visits directly impact the bottom line of hospitals and medical centers resulting in the soaring number of hospital bankruptcies and mergers that have driven the cost of medical insurance beyond the grasp of thousands of working class citizens.  Through their partnership with MOM-AZ, hospitals will reduce the number of uncollectible accounts from unnecessary emergency rooms visits because these patients have found comprehensive, no cost health care and prescriptions elsewhere. 
• Disease associations (Diabetes, Heart, Lung, etc.) have already developed quality bilingual educational materials, but because they do not provide direct patient care, they do not serve as many patients as they could if they partnered with a direct service provider like MOM-AZ.  Coordinated health care and education provided to patients with chronic diseases will prevent future deterioration of their health status, enable them to better manage their disease, improve the quality of their lives and prevent the need for emergency room services.  Both MOM and its disease association partners are strengthened in their capacity to serve their patients.

The ultimate beneficiaries of this community initiative will be MOM-AZ patients, who will be able to receive the specialty care they require in a manner that restores their dignity and returns them to a more full and productive life.

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