News Releases

News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: October 12, 2005
For more information, contact Virginia Elliott, Vice President for Programs, 620-662-8586

United Methodist Health Ministry Fund announces new health grants

Hutchinson, KS—The United Methodist Health Ministry Fund announces new grants totaling over $862,000 for projects to improve the health of Kansans. The Health Fund grants an average of nearly $3 million each year to support health projects in its three strategic focus areas: access to health care, oral health, and healthy nutrition and exercise.

Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas is launching an expanded dental care program with the acquisition of a facility in downtown Pittsburg. A $100,000 grant from the Health Fund will assist with the purchase of the remodeled facility. The dental program will offer on-site dental treatment and prevention services five days a week. Fort Scott Community College is also starting a dental hygienist training program which will use the Pittsburg site for its clinical training. When fully operational, the program anticipates providing 6200 patient encounters a year.

Salina Family Health Care Center will use grant support of $51,765 to assist in the start-up of its new dental clinic. Dr. Tim Pivonka is the dentist for the new service which will operate at 625 E. North Street, Salina. The new clinic features six operatories, an x-ray room, lab, waiting area, and business office. The new dental clinic also provides dental services to Heartland Programs, the local HeadStart program.

Kathy Hunt, RDH, Wamego, will expand dental hygiene services to students who are enrolled in Medicaid and HealthWave in some area school districts. Community Health Ministry of Wamego will provide a base of operation for these expanded dental hygiene services. With a sponsoring dentist, Hunt will be functioning under provisions of the Kansas extended care permit law which encourages hygienists with appropriate permits to serve groups with problems accessing oral health care. The Health Fund grant of $38,517 will pay for mobile equipment, program management, and some miscellaneous expenses of delivering the services.

A one-year grant of $163,248 awarded to the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved, Topeka, will help augment a new Kansas program intended to expand access to low-cost pharmaceuticals at primary care safety net clinics. The Health Fund grant will help expand the benefits of this program to include additional clinics.

A $100,000 grant has been awarded to the Office of Oral Health of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Topeka. The grant will partially support the new position of Professional Outreach Coordinator for two years. A dental hygienist is expected to be hired for the position by January. The initial charge of the coordinator will be training and supporting medical professionals in the application of fluoride varnish for their young patients. Fluoride varnish has been shown to reduce tooth decay among young children when applied several times each year. It can be easily and quickly applied by nurses or physicians during a child’s medical visit, which would also include a screening of the child’s mouth and referral to a dentist if needed.

A grant of $124,334 will support the Kansas Foundation for Medical Care, Topeka, in its effort to encourage Kansas hospitals to adopt life-saving interventions advocated by the national 100K Lives Campaign. The national campaign, sponsored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, aims to prevent the avoidable deaths of 100,000 hospital patients by June 14, 2006. The Kansas Foundation for Medical Care estimates the number of avoidable deaths in Kansas could decrease by 1,000 if Kansas hospitals adopt the recommended improvements.

A grant of $50,000 will establish a statewide fund to provide timely assistance to low-income clinics as they grow to serve additional patients and provide additional services. The Kansas Community Development Fund will be administered over the next two years by the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved, Topeka. Funds will be requested as needed for consultant fees, travel expenses, training, workshops, and other technical assistance when clinics attempt to expand to meet every growing demand or add new services. Community health centers in Kansas provide care to nearly 50,000 patients each year. An estimated 300,000 Kansans lack health insurance.

Dental directors and managers from several safety-net clinics in Kansas will participate in four trainings provided by the Iowa/Nebraska Primary Care Association. A grant of $8,440 goes to the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved, Topeka, to pay for expenses of Kansas participants.

Kansas Action for Children, Topeka, receives a grant of $78,535 to continue its work of advocating for Kansas children and families. “It is especially important in this time of ideological and financial turmoil to have a strong voice for the physical, emotional, and educational well-being of all Kansas children and youth,” said Kim Moore, Health Fund president. Kansas Action for Children provides information on child well-being through the Kansas Children’s Report Card, the Kansas KIDS COUNT Data Book, and many special reports. For twenty-five years, Kansas Action for Children has proposed policy alternatives that are child, youth, and family friendly and worked to build a base of citizen advocacy for the concerns of children.

The Kansas Health Consumer Coalition receives $46,000 to employ a full-time staff person to assist in educational efforts relating to the new Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit enrollment process. Approximately 360,000 Kansas seniors will need to choose a prescription drug benefit plan during a compressed time period of November 15, 2005 to May 15, 2006. The Kansas Health Consumer Coalition will partner with other groups working to provide analysis, education, and enrollment support. The Coalition intends to provide training to several groups, including parish nurses, about the new prescription drug benefit. For more information about this project, contact Laurie Dale Marshall, Director, Kansas Health Consumer Coalition at Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved, Topeka.

Center for Health & Wellness, Wichita, will receive a $30,000 grant to continue its Prescription for Prevention program. This program, started with a Health Fund grant last year, provides health education and exercise classes to patients as part of a “prescription” from health care providers at the clinic. Fifty-three patients were enrolled in the program during its first year and that number is expected to significantly increase in the second year.

A grant of $8,075 to the LIFE Project Foundation of Wichita will underwrite a statewide parish nurse conference. The conference will be held October 12-13 in Wichita at the Spiritual Life Center. JoVeta Wescott is the conference director. Organizers expect 150 parish nurses to attend.

A grant of $62,500 has been awarded to Wichita State University to support the first year of a Manager of Dental Programs for Healthy Options for Kansas Communities (formerly Healthy Options for Planeview) in Wichita. The grant will support development of a dental hygiene clinic on the campus of Colvin Elementary School. The clinic will provide affordable, accessible preventive dental care and oral health education.

The Aldersgate United Methodist Church, Wichita, has been awarded a $1,000 grant which will be used to enhance training for the church’s parish nurse program. The grant project director is Gwen Whittit, and the pastor of Aldersgate UMC is the Rev. Butch Lambert. Under the Health Fund’s Healthy Congregations initiative, start-up grants of up to $5,000 are available to local United Methodist churches to stimulate the development of comprehensive congregational health and wellness ministries. It is the hope of the Health Fund that these one-time grants, added to local church resources, will mobilize strong volunteer efforts to address the many facets of health in congregations and communities throughout Kansas.

Based in Hutchinson, the mission of the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund is “Healthy Kansans through cooperative and strategic philanthropy guided by Christian principles.” Its funding comes from an endowment established in 1986 by the Kansas West Conference of the United Methodist Church from a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Wesley Hospital in Wichita. Since the Health Fund’s founding, grants totaling more than $39 million have supported hundreds of health-related projects in Kansas.

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