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Wayne Health plans big for grant STATE AID: The Wayne County Rural Health Network received a $194,968 award from the state to fund its health care programs. NEWARK - Health care services in the state, including those in Wayne County, will receive a funding boost with nearly $14 million in state aid. Gov. David Paterson announced Feb. 10 that the Wayne County Rural Health Network will receive a $194,968 grant to fund its health care planning and development projects. The award is part of $13.8 million provided to non-profit clinics, hospitals and health departments across the state. 'Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of health care services in New York's cities, towns and villages requires the hard work and collaboration of our state and local governments,' said Paterson in a prepared statement. 'These grants will not only help our communities in developing a health care blueprint for the future, but will assist them in facing the unique challenges to sustaining high-quality health care services in their communities.' Health network coordinator Emilie Sisson said she was thrilled to learn Wayne County received the funding. 'We're going to do a lot with this grant,' she said. 'We're going to do a lot of little things.' The funding was provided by the state Department of Health's Rural Health Network Development Program and is designed to aid projects that support Health Commissioner Richard Danes' 'Prevention Agenda for the Healthiest State.' The agenda calls on health departments, hospitals and community partners to collaboratively address the following priority areas: access to quality health care; chronic disease; community preparedness; healthy environment; healthy mothers, babies and children; infectious disease; mental health and substance abuse; physical activity and nutrition; tobacco use; and unintentional injury. Sisson said the Wayne County Rural Health Network, one of more than 35 such networks in the state, will address those areas in a multitude of ways. 'What the network in Wayne County does is develop programs and ideas and implement them,' she said, adding the network often works with other partners to help fund ideas or programs until they are self-sustaining. 'Our job is to take ideas that really should be funded and really need to be addressed and help address them and help fund it.' One of the problems facing Wayne County that will be addressed through the funding is mothers and children without health insurance, said Sisson. Through a Child Health Plus initiative, the network will provide assistance in confidential and private locations to people filling out insurance applications. The award will also allow the health network to follow up with people who may have become overwhelmed by the process. Another use for the funding will be to support dental hygiene programs in schools that will teach students how to brush, floss and keep their mouths healthy. Sisson said the state often provides funding for dentists to visit schools to give students dental exams, but does not fund educational programs on dental care. The funding will give them the opportunity to do so, said Sisson. The funding will also aid the health network in addressing chronic disease prevention, education and management. 'The better educated people are, the better they'll be able to manage a disease such as diabetes,' said Sisson. The network has a new educational initiative that includes hosting a diabetes health fair with Cornell Cooperative Extension that will offer, among other educational programs, cooking classes for people with diabetes. The state award will also allow the network to continue its Finger Lakes Community College scholarship, a forgivable loan program that covers the tuition, books and other fees for students interested in health care to attend FLCC - if they agree to work in Wayne County for two years. Other possibilities for the funding include: the Wayne County Public Health Dental Clinic; Wayne County prescription discount cards, which will provide 20 to 50 percent discounts on prescriptions to people without prescription insurance; a children's health fair; countywide identification cards for emergency medical services providers; and educational forums and symposiums for EMS providers. With so many options possible, Sisson looks forward to providing more services to residents. 'We like to think our importance is were very efficient,' she said. 'We do outreach to people who need services to access services that they might not otherwise (have). We connect people to those services. We make sure those connections are made. That's the real value of what we do.' Copyright
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