Madison County Memorial Hospital
Contributor
Madison County Memorial Hospital (MCMH) received a donation of two ambulances from YKI Group, LLC and two of their sister companies, TriSpark Media and Butler Title. The plan was to outfit the vehicles to be able to engage with the community around health and wellness. The hospital was approached by YKI with what seemed to be an unbelievable offer, “We are looking for a hospital to donate an ambulance to,” said Katreena Niebla, Project Manager at YKI. Even though the corporate office is in South Florida, the service area includes Tallahassee, which led them to look at Madison.
Shortly after the hospital acquired the vehicles, COVID began to spread, and the hospital had to fight the pandemic. After launching the vaccination station, the hospital requested funding from the Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) to turn one of the ambulances into a mobile unit. The hospital was awarded $743,000 to outfit the ambulances, hire additional staff, pay for vaccines and other supplies, conduct outreach and health education, secure protection equipment and establish an online learning management system to build modules for staff, providers and the community.
Funded in part by the HRSA grant, the hospital converted one of the ambulances into a Mobile Vaccination Vehicle. “While the drive-through has served us well,” says Lori Evans, Director of Development, “as we expanded to people under the age of 65, we felt like being able to take it out in the community would help us vaccinate more people in a shorter time frame.”
“With support from HRSA, the Mobile Wellness Unit (MWU) has allowed us to meet our community health goals,” said Kevin Angel, MWU Program Manager. “In the past 12 months, in conjunction with our vaccination partners, we helped increase the number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 by almost 18 percent.”
The hospital has been engaging with the public for over a year through this Mobile Wellness Unit (MWU). This team has provided outreach, health education, vaccines, therapy, and counseling to help combat COVID and its long-term effects in the community. They have hosted vaccination clinics at schools, churches, retirement communities and more. Lastly, the team has hosted several expressive art therapy sessions for the community to help alleviate stress and promote wellness. MWU has traveled from Madison, Suwannee and Taylor Counties, participating in community events and hospital-sponsored functions. Next on the list is Hamilton and Lafayette. If you have an organization or business and would like the Mobile Wellness to come to you, contact MWU today at (850) 253-1907 or email coach@mcmh.us.
MCMH is located near downtown Madison and serves a 60-mile radius of North Florida and South Georgia. With an emergency room, inpatient-nursing, swing-bed, acute care and observation as well as Outpatient- diagnostic, physical, occupational and speech therapy, a full-service laboratory, endoscopy services, and general surgery, the goal is to build a collaborative network to ensure a strong and healthy community through innovative health services. To learn more about MCMH, visit their website at www.mcmh.us and/or on Facebook madisoncountymemorial hospitalMCMH.