St. Mary's Medical Center Case Study

Through an existing partnership with local schools St. Mary’s Medical Center received information regarding poor dental health from school nurses that children were coming to school with tooth pain that they could not address. Furthermore this problem was complicating teaching these children due to the pain. Also fewer dentists were accepting Medicaid due to reimbursement and transportation issues that added to further lost revenue for community dentist. The hospital has access to invaluable community resources to assist in planning and developing a mobile dentist service outreach program that includes school nurses and support staff, churches, civic organizations, and community dentists.
Effective and open communication is vital in order to sustain the relationships between the stakeholders in the community St. Mary’s Medical Center. Establish regular meetings to ensure partners are kept informed, to communicate changes and discuss identified issues and resolutions. Each partner must have a clear understanding of their role and what facets of partnership endeavor they are responsible for. Although there is an importance for a leader of this endeavor, it is important that each stakeholder can speak freely and has input on the partnership. It is essential there is a mutual shared trust that is maintained at all times. The
Mary’s Medical Center to market and promote the medical center by offering health fairs to introduce the community to the hospital. The health fairs can be geared toward health screening toward adults heath related issues and dietary counseling geared toward children given the rise in childhood obesity. By offering free health screenings and community health fairs the medical center can gain added trust from the community by showing their further commitment to the health of the community. Additionally the medical center could potential gain revenue by building on the community