Writer: Liz Palmer
2 min readOctober 2022 — Northeast Florida’s notable population growth has brought growing pains to the healthcare industry’s doorstep. To combat this, Jacksonville’s healthcare leaders are being creative in their approach to assessing needs and finding ways to accommodate the heightened demand for healthcare while also addressing disparities in accessing quality care.
A Community Needs Assessment released earlier this year by the Jacksonville Nonprofit Hospital Partnership details access to resources like food, affordable cost of living, preventative care and transportation as being key to closing gaps in local health disparities.
Darnell Smith, Florida Blue’s North Florida market president, is one of leaders working to address these needs. “The more people there are, the more of an opportunity to advance our mission of getting everyone access to healthcare,” he told Invest: this summer. “Four of the major cities here in Florida are seeing some of the most aggressive growth in the nation. When businesses are coming as well as individuals it helps and allows us access to more opportunities to work with partners to deliver care and it means more of an impact on the solutions that are available, such as hospitals and clinics. We all work well together in being able to move forward and make those things happen to meet the needs of the public. I think Jacksonville is no longer a secret and because people are finding us, Jacksonville will really achieve its stride.”
One of Smith’s priorities is ensuring that more growth equals more access to quality, affordable healthcare for Northeast Florida residents. “I believe our providers want to do great work but we have to approach things differently to bring about solutions that will address the issues that are most important to people. Those issues are affordability, quality and access and that is always the case. I believe we have the quality but access and affordability are issues that we have to work diligently to address, specifically affordability,” he said. “We have the opportunity today to collaborate to find solutions that will prove beneficial far into the future. We believe that a value-based approach is the way to go about it. We must be able to look at the total care of the individual and ensure that they are able to receive the best care possible and address concerns early on regarding healthcare costs to allow everyone to win.”
One such collaboration is facilitated through the Blue Zones Project, a healthy lifestyle concept based on regions around the world whose communities tend to live longer, healthier lives. In Jacksonville, the Blue Zones Project is making information and resources associated with a healthy, balanced lifestyle more accessible to the wider community through avenues such as articles, recipes and events. Florida Blue, Baptist Health, the City of Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation, among other regional public and private organizations, are partners in the Blue Zones’ Jacksonville initiative.
Baptist Health’s Community Health Plan, a response to the Community Needs Assessment, comes with frequent social responsibility updates to track what the hospital system is doing to address Northeast Florida’s healthcare needs. For September, Baptist Health shared investments made in local community programs ‘Tipping the Scale’ and ‘Pie in the Sky Community Alliance’. A component of Tipping the Scale is creating a clear pipeline toward a career in the medical field through strategic mentorships and shadowing experiences, and Pie in the Sky Community Alliance acts as an accessible food pantry to local seniors living below the poverty line.
Preventative lifestyle measures and addressing economic barriers are just a few ways the healthcare sector is taking on a larger population. HCA Florida Memorial Hospital has set up a way for patients to seek professional advice or assistance, no matter how far away they live from a brick and mortar facility. “We recently started a ‘Consult a Nurse’ program, where anyone can call and get information about a health condition, receive feedback and even get sent to a doctor’s office, urgent care center or even a hospital,” President and CEO Bradley Talbert told Invest:. “Telemedicine appointments are becoming more mainstream and will continue to stay that way. People want that option, and we’ve invested in technology that allows our physicians to meet directly with patients on an out-patient basis. It is even used to help some smaller rural hospitals, where our physicians interact with their patients.”
