Woman's Hospital's partnership with Mayor Kip Holden's office and four other Baton Rouge-area hospitals was honored July 25 with an American Hospital Association NOVA Award at the Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit in San Francisco.
Holden's Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative is one of five national health efforts recognized for improving community health. The initiative was formed in 2008, with a mission to identify and coordinate efforts aimed at encouraging healthier eating and more active lifestyles across Baton Rouge.
The partnership of more than 70 organizations — including Woman’s Hospital, Baton Rouge Medical Center, Ochsner Medical Center and Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center — assesses community health needs, identifies priorities and puts new programs and services into place to support better health throughout the region. The initiative focuses on addressing obesity, HIV and AIDS, and mental and behavioral health issues.
“The AHA NOVA Award recognizes hospitals and collaborative efforts that show how caring and compassion can improve health and wellness,” said AHA President and CEO Rich Umbdenstock. “The hospitals leading these programs are truly inspirational examples of how the power of collaboration can make our communities healthier, safer and better places to live.”
Woman's addresses community health efforts through its programs and services that aim to improve the health of women and infants, including:
- Preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission through case management of HIV-positive mothers, including rapid-test technology.
- Providing each adult woman subjected to sexual assault with dignified professional care.
- Preventing and reducing health issues among women and children by increasing breastfeeding initiation, duration and education.
- Striving to be among the city's healthiest work forces through food choices in the hospital, wellness coaching and other strategies.
- Developing and distributing information concerning preconception planning and pregnancy spacing, both hospital-provided and in conjunction with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, in order to improve birth outcomes.
The four other initiatives honored by the AHA are the Bithlo Transformation Project in Orlando, Fla.; Activate Whittier in Whittier, Calif.; Community Health: Healthy Eating in Albuquerque, N.M.; and the Blood Pressure Advocate Program in Rochester, N.Y.
The AHA created the NOVA awards in 1993 to pay tribute to hospitals and health systems that go beyond caring for the ill and injured to help people live healthier, more productive lives.