Year in Review 2021-2022
Connection
The National Challenge:
Decades of research offers evidence that social connectedness is a powerful determinant of well-being. The more we enjoy close family relations and friendships, the more we participate in the life of our communities, the stronger our engagement and affiliations, the better our health and the longer we may live.
Harvard University scholar and political scientist Robert Putnam, PhD, makes that case in his defining work “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” revised and updated in 2020. He uses a mountain of data to warn about the harm of increasing disconnection — “from family, friends, neighbors and our democratic structures” — that tears at our social cohesion, undermines our trust in each other and threatens “our health at the community level.”
Rapid cultural and social changes brought by the internet, a pandemic, the rise of new social movements and other agents of transformation continue to underscore the reality that human health is inseparable from community, care and connection.
Rosalind Franklin University’s community-based model of education, training and care places us at the nexus of change, working in trusted partnership with hospitals, health systems, school systems, community-based organizations and all of their stakeholders to improve health and transform the future of care. Our collective effort — our trusted connection — drives us to confront systemic inequities that create barriers to care for populations that struggle to meet their basic needs.
Our connection to our community is our superpower. We want to use that power to make it easier for everyone to be healthy, to increase access to care, to educate people on how to navigate a complex healthcare system. We want to use it to build a healthcare workforce that is invested in the communities it serves and whose members are eager to serve those most in need. We want to use it to build more partnerships, to build resilience, to build trust.
We want to meet people where they are, to seek to understand them and to offer the support and the care they need.
RFU Action
Community Care Connection
In the 12 years since its inception, our Community Care Connection (CCC) mobile health initiative has come to define our community-based vision of care for our most vulnerable neighbors.
The CCC’s mobile Care Coach is health equity in action, bringing free health services to medically underserved, hard-to-reach patients at more than 30 sites in Lake County. We rely on trusted partnerships with communitybased organizations and agencies that host Care Coach visits and create a support network for our patients, helping them address basic needs like housing, food, childcare and healthcare services.
Family Nurse Practitioner Lupe Rodriguez, APN, director of Community Health Engagement, takes a two-pronged approach to care for the people in her community: empowerment and access.
“We really strive to empower our community members to understand the importance of primary-care appointments — that they need annual visits, not just when they’re sick,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “But access isn’t just an appointment. It’s also care. And all care is not equal. Does the patient understand what is being said to them on every level — not just health literacy, but in terms of the language being spoken to them?”
The language barrier is profound and consequential. Many CCC patients pay into employer-based health insurance, but don’t understand how to use it — that their premium pays for annual checkups; that there is no co-pay; that they can access the physician finder and ask for someone in Spanish. Ms. Rodriguez and her small crew spend 30 minutes with each patient, quickly building rapport.
“That human connection is vital to care,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “When we find people in their own space, in their own neighborhood or community center, it really helps to create a relationship, which is harder to do in a brick-and-mortar clinic where 20 other patients are waiting. We take time for the conversation around prevention: the importance of blood pressure checks and pap smears and COVID vaccines; the importance of following up with a doctor if they’re on diabetes medications to ensure there are no consequences to the management. We’re empowering through education.”
Jeff Espina, MBA, vice president for clinical services, said the CCC is recognizing and responding to a pervasive hesitance to seek care. He wants to expand capacity for health screenings, vaccinations and education with the addition of a sprinter van — a smaller vehicle that can be quickly deployed at other locations — and a second state-of-the-art CCC mobile clinic.
“We’re trying to meet increased demand from the communities we serve,” Mr. Espina said. “We’re helping the community but we’re also helping our hospital partners by offering care that can reduce preventable emergency care visits.”
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“We really strive to empower our community members to understand the importance of primary-care appointments — that they need annual visits, not just when they’re sick.”
Community. Care. Connection.
Philanthropic Response
NorthShore University HealthSystem
When a low-income family signs up their child for after-school athletics, they’re an injury away from a high deductible emergency room visit or an expensive co-pay for an MRI. Maybe it’s a sprained ankle or a twisted knee or something worse. Parents who can’t afford treatment may choose to wait and see if it’s something worse.
This was the situation at Heart of the City soccer club in Waukegan, which insures its participants and pays the $500 deductible when parents can’t afford to — an expensive proposition when 70% of players qualify for free or reduced school lunches.
Things changed when Family Nurse Practitioner Lupe Rodriguez, APN, RFU director of Community Health Engagement, joined the club’s board and suggested that physical therapy faculty who help staff RFU’s pro bono Interprofessional Community Clinic might stop by the practice field. Jeffrey Damaschke, PT, DPT, PhD, and Sarah Haag, PT, DPT, MS, began visiting on Mondays to assess, diagnose and treat injuries, set up a rehabilitation plan, or make referrals to the ICC or other providers.
“We’ve got professional advice right there on the spot,” said Dean Smith, the club’s sporting director. “We know if we need to submit a claim. But it’s so much more than that.”
The therapists also offer yoga and Zumba sessions for parents and players, and education on injury prevention, pre-game training, stretching and other PT topics. During the 2022 summer season, RFU’s Care Coach stopped by the field once a month to provide screenings. Shortly before the start of school in the fall, it pulled into the parking lot to offer sports physicals.
“They’re really helping us build a sense of community for our players and parents,” Mr. Smith said.
RFU’s Community Care Connection is funded in part by a $682,000 NorthShore University HealthSystem Community Investment Fund Award.
“We realize we need to do a better job of connecting with our community in a different way,” said Gabrielle Cummings, FACHE, president of Legacy NorthShore Acute Care Operations and Highland Park Hospital. “Not in a way that NorthShore thinks works, but in a way that works for the community based upon what they’re telling us. We want to define partners like Rosalind Franklin University who are nimble, innovative and who can help us connect to the community to deliver care in a way that we don’t do today.”
“RFU has made a tremendous impact with limited resources and funding by going into communities and neighborhoods and safe spaces to deliver care, which can’t always be delivered in an acute-care setting,” Ms. Cummings added. “We know communities appreciate that access.”
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“RFU has made a tremendous impact with limited resources and funding by going into communities and neighborhoods and safe spaces to deliver care, which can’t always be delivered in an acute-care setting.”
