Offering a Helping Hand
Charlotte/Mecklenburg County and Carolinas HealthCare System
A Healthy Partnership and a Compassionate Approach
The community health benefits of top flight hospital systems like CHS clearly provide tangible quality of life benefits, like better overall healthcare and even a better environment for individual wellness within respective communities. As the third largest not-for-profit public hospital system in the nation, we also believe a community’s quality of life can be measured by its compassion and willingness to help neighbors in need. In fact, at CHS, it begins “at home.” Our employees donated more than $76 million to charities and volunteered more than 21,000 hours on behalf of CHS.
As a company, CHS provides significant resources to deliver millions of dollars in community-based services including:
- Anson Parish Nurse and Nurse Ministry Program
- School, Work and Community wellness programs through LiveWELL, Carolinas!
- North Carolina’s Poison Center
- Mobile dentistry (for nursing home patients)
- Pediatric Resource Center
- Charlotte Reach 2010 (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health, developed to decrease the incidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes among African-Americans in the Northwest Area of Charlotte)
- Teen Health Connection
- Carolinas MED-1 Mobile Striking Emergency Hospital
- Free medication for indigent patients
- Medical supply donations
- “Give Kids a Smile Day”
- Safe Kids of Charlotte Car Seat Program
Our investment in community health goes well beyond community programs and right to the bottom line. Carolinas HealthCare System provides the majority of the community’s charity care and in 2005 provided $163.5 million in healthcare to uninsured and underinsured patients – 343 percent of the threshold for county funding for indigent care.
We also invest in the future. CHS's flagship hospital, Carolinas Medicial Center, is the region’s only academic medical center —one of five in the state—to educate and train more than 200 residents yearly in a wide range of disciplines from primary to specialty care. Our investment in preparing future physicians and medical support staff will provide positive benefit to the region for generations to come—half of the physicians finishing their residency at CMC and moving to private practice stay to practice medicine in the region.
A separate part of Carolinas HealthCare's continuing education program is the Carolinas College of the Health Sciences, where we train the area’s future medical support staff, including nurses, nurse anesthetists, medical techs, radiological techs and surgical techs. Over 75 percent of the 175 annual graduates of this institution stay in the region to work.
We’re also proud to be associated with the Charlotte Area Health Education Center (AHEC), which provides continuing education to health professionals from healthcare settings across an eight-county region. This center serves as a training ground for the area’s healthcare professionals and also provides insurance against a shortage of healthcare professionals, which is a common problem in other areas.
Carolinas HealthCare System continues to have a positive impact on the region. Through charity care, outreach programs, community health initiatives and education, CHS is ensuring healthcare will continue to be a part of a healthy Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.
