(March 26, 2009) - Bon Secours Hospital has played a vital role in West Baltimore for decades. Now, we are looking carefully at how we can best continue to serve the community for many years to come.
This spring, we plan to launch an important process to hear directly from the people most affected by our work – the residents of West Baltimore. Through this process, which will extend over several months, we will develop a better understanding of residents’ healthcare needs.
To begin, Bon Secours is bringing together healthcare and community leaders to guide our work, including representatives from the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland and some major philanthropic organizations, as well as the Bon Secours of Maryland Foundation, which provides a range of important community services.
In the months ahead, this group will hold public meetings where members of the community will have the opportunity to discuss their needs and offer suggestions for improvements in how healthcare is delivered.
We already know that one of the community’s most pressing needs is increased access to affordable preventive and primary care. Our area suffers because there are not enough primary care physicians and many of our residents lack health insurance.
People who do not have adequate access to primary and preventive care often fail to get treatment for minor ailments that then turn into serious problems. Many people in our community have chronic conditions such as hypertension, asthma and diabetes, but they often struggle to get affordable ongoing treatment. These treatable ailments then turn into major emergencies.
We will develop with our community a vision for a better designed healthcare system to serve West Baltimore.
For example, we can envision an improved system in which everyone has access to a primary care doctor – either in an office setting or in an urgent or walk-in center – and reduce the costly over-reliance by patients on hospital emergency rooms.
We should look for ways to provide high-quality care for chronic ailments such as diabetes or asthma. And we need to ensure that there are hospital services for those who truly need them.
Why is this community engagement process necessary?
Frankly, Bon Secours is not achieving our most important goal – making our community healthier.
Residents of the area served by Bon Secours die from heart disease at a rate that is 35 percent higher than the city as a whole. Compared to the entire city, this area also has far higher deaths from HIV/AIDS and diabetes.
Overall, residents along the West Baltimore Street corridor can expect to live, on average, nearly 20 years less than residents of some, more affluent city neighborhoods.
Bon Secours has been working hard to make our community healthier. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the Bon Secours team, we do many things well, such as our treatment program for substance abuse and mental health issues.
But despite our best efforts, the overall health of the people of West Baltimore is not improving.
At the same time, Bon Secours Hospital, like many other inner-city hospitals, is losing millions of dollars every year. The state of Maryland has done what it can to improve reimbursement rates to help our bottom line.
But we expect our losses to continue. And these losses are not sustainable over time, which means we have to search for new ways to care for the community.
As our planned community engagement process begins, I want to stress that Bon Secours remains committed to West Baltimore and will continue to be a major presence here.
We are excited at the prospect of refocusing our work in the community to better meet the needs of the people here. I urge members of the community to look for news about this engagement process and to join us us in this critically important work.
Dr. Samuel L. Ross is chief executive officer of Bon Secours Baltimore Health System.