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Escambia Health Figures: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
March 30, 2014
A new report showing Escambia County was 57th in the State of Florida for healthiness was disappointing but not surprising, said David Sjoberg, executive director of Partnership for a Healthy Community.
“It confirms what we’ve been saying all along,” said Sjoberg, referring to the County Health Rankings & Roadmap tool by the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The Partnership has sponsored comprehensive health status assessments for Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2012. The studies showed little improvement over the years. Most of the data in the newest study was based on the years 2010-2012.
The Partnership now is developing a plan for the best short-term strategies for dealing with the problems. Sjoberg expects it to be ready in late summer.
While Escambia dropped to 57th place from its previous ranking of 55 out of 67 Florida counties, Sjoberg noted that its ranking for “factors” actually rose two places.
“Factors incorporate data for key behaviors like smoking, drinking and unhealthy weight, as well as key clinical and socioeconomic indicators, including things like availability of health providers and number of people who receive appropriate screenings,” Sjoberg said. “If we sustain it, doing better on ‘factors’ should serve as a predictor that we’ll do better on ‘outcomes’ over time. It’s a sign that we’re starting to do better.
“It will, however, take a few years of collaborative community effort to begin to improve the bigger set of indicators used to measure overall community health status,” Sjoberg said.
He stated that employers and residents of Escambia and Santa Rosa counties are accounting for more than $1 billion related to tobacco use, unhealthy weight and improper use of hospital emergency rooms, which are more expensive than other medical facilities.
This is a statewide problem; Florida is one of the four worst states in the nation when it comes to misuse of emergency facilities. Escambia County is one of the worst offenders in Florida.
“If we can make some progress in improving health and make a dent in those tremendously high costs, it will improve both the economy and quality of life in our two counties,” said Sjoberg.
Meanwhile, the Partnership for a Health Community has been working on solutions.
It has established a comprehensive website which promotes healthy living and health education. It also has recruited businesses and institutions to become Live Well Partners and formed groups to work on top priorities – healthy weight, tobacco cessation and efficient use of healthcare facilities. The priorities were established last May at a gathering organized by Partnership.
In addition, the group won a prestigious award to help it show people how to deal with weight-related problems. Partnership was one of 12 groups nationwide chosen to receive the guidance of a “community coach” from the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The service is offered at no cost, thanks to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care.
The goal of Partnership is to develop a community action plan for the three priority areas in the Escambia-Santa Rosa area, which ranks 19th out of 22 Florida Metropolitan Statistical Areas.
Comments
6 Responses to “Escambia Health Figures: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly”
@ John, the problem isn’t necessarily “federal and state laws,” Those laws ONLY state that if a person comes to an ER with a MEDICAL EMERGENCY that they must be treated. ALL hospitals have the ability to do what is called a Medical Screening Exam (MSE) which is an exam done by qualified medical personnel that has the ability to determine either “this is an emergency” or “this isn’t an emergency.” If it is determined to not be a medical emergency, the hospital has the ability to send the patient out the door, without treatment and without highly priced medical care that can be provided by an Urgent Care center or the patients Primary Care provider. The problem is that MOST facilities do not utilize this MSE screening the way it should be used. A lot of facilities only pre-warn the patient that if they choose to stay for treatment that their medical insurance “may not pay for the visit.” The problem there is that the majority of the people who DO receive an MSE screening choose to stay for treatment anyway, meaning that MAY be personally billed for the visit but most of them don’t care because they aren’t planning on paying the bill anyway. I think an MSE screening that determines that the visit is not of an emergent nature should be sent out regardless of whether the patient WANTS to stay or not. I know this may sound cold, I don’t intend it that way, but a lot of people are using the Emergency Rooms in our area as their Primary Cares instead of for their intended purpose……Emergencies.
Unfortunately, most of these proposed solutions won’t fix our problems. We live in a society where demands are met to appease anyone. Most of the abuse of the emergency room isn’t due to a lack of education, it’s due to an increase of ignorance. A large portion of society is out for what they want as soon as they want it, and most of the time the wants are for narcotics. The system is abused beyond measure and now health care workers are being taught to worry more about customer service and giving the abusers everything the demand than the quality of care. Those of us in health care could trade our medical education in for a hospitality degree and most wouldn’t know the difference because they tell us how to care for them medically anyway.
A large majority of the time the abuse of the emergency facilities occurs specifically because the persons know that they won’t be asked to pay up front. And they have to pay a small ($3) copay at their primary care doctors office. I’ve been told before that they come to the emergency room just because “I didn’t want to have to pay anything.” And they are dressed in designer clothes, carrying designer purses, have smart phones, lots of nice jewelry…those people have the mindset that we need to change. The truly needy, that can’t afford it…there are clinics and healthcare programs in place to help them.
And Rick Scott wants to keep Florida from receiving healthcare benefits, from the Federal govt. because of politics….Typical selfishness of Republicans….
Regarding the ( misuse of emergency facilities ) that’s only because the federal and state laws the ER can’t turn people away and people know this. If you have a in grown toe nail you should be turned away.
If you don’t have a good paying job you can’t eat properly or afford your medicine. You don’t go to the dentist or the doctor because you can’t afford it. Just a thought……