LEON COUNTY

County Profile:

1999 population 239,564. Twenty-five percent of the population is below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. The major city is Tallahassee.

Health Care Access:

According to Medical Quality Assurance, in 1999, Leon County had 546 medical doctors, 17 osteopathic physicians, 110 dentists, and 3,003 nurses actively licensed.

Leon County is the largest of the ten counties in region two and is the medical center for the surrounding area, mostly for specialty care.

Status of Volunteer Efforts:

The We Care Network in Leon County was established by Capital Medical Society in January 1992. This program has provided over $5.9 million in services to the medically indigent, since its inception. The program provides free medical treatment, laboratory services, and hospitalization to Leon County residents. Two hundred eighty-five physicians treated 630 patients, this year. A large percentage of these patients received specialty care, including gynecology, general surgery, and gastroenterology.

We Care Network is committed to maintaining an organized system of referral, whereby participating Capital Medical Society physicians may provide medical care to indigent patients in Leon County.

Physicians Outreach Project established a We Care program in three rural counties (Gadsden, Wakulla, and Jefferson) surrounding Leon County. The Capital Medical Society office in Tallahassee manages this program as part of the Capital Medical Society Foundation, Inc.

Neighborhood Health Services, established in 1974, is an independent non-profit organization that addresses the health care needs of uninsured, low-income, and no-income people in Leon County and surrounding areas. The agency currently operates the following programs: free walk-in medical clinics, a dental program, an eye care program, an in-house pharmacy, a hypertension clinic, a mental health clinic, flu vaccinations and other preventive health services programs, a medical social work program providing a gateway to the health care system, a transportation program for the underserved areas, case management services, and a health and hygiene item distribution center. In collaboration with other health care partners, Neighborhood Health Services is developing the Care-Net system to better provide access to health care for all members of the community.

This fiscal year, 2,149 clients received care over the course of 4,975 clinic visits. Six thousand five hundred forty-five prescriptions were filled. Patients were also provided with laboratory services and transportation.

Neighborhood Health Services served as a training site for 230 students preparing for numerous health care professions. These students learned about the specific provisions of care and became sensitized to issues of service to persons lacking access to health care.

Neighborhood Health Services worked collaboratively with the We Care Network and other health care organizations serving uninsured, medically indigent persons to develop plans for a more comprehensive, connected system of providing appropriate and timely access to care. Their efforts have bee endorsed and recommended by the City-County Indigent Health Care Task Force.

Additional operational funding is being made available to Neighborhood Health Services from the Primary Care Challenge Grant awarded to the Leon County Health Department for the next three years. A Project: Dentists Care contract has now been executed that designates Neighborhood Health Services as the site for this project in Leon County.

Leon County Health Department volunteers contributed significantly to the overall effectiveness of the dental, nursing, health education, WIC, and social services programs. The dental clinic serves as an internship site for the Tallahassee Community College Schools of Dental Hygiene and Dental Assisting, with students contributing 384 hours of clinic services. The nursing students from Florida State University and Florida A & M University gain practical experience while providing valuable services to the community. In the past year, 83 nursing students spent four to 12 weeks learning about nursing in the public sector and serving the community. Three nutrition students served with the WIC program, conducting daycare inspections, participating in nutrition clinics, and conducting an outreach program in collaboration with the Wakulla County Health Department. Two undergraduate social work interns provided 480 hours of service conducting outreach, home visit, and clinic intake interview services.

Children’s Medical Services clinic, in Tallahassee, utilized 140 volunteers from the nursing and early childhood education programs at Florida State and Florida A & M Universities, and the Lively Vocational-Technical School practical nursing program. One person who was applying for admission to the Program in Medical Sciences (PIMS) at Florida State University volunteered at this pediatric clinic. The volunteers gained experience with patients by taking height, weight, blood pressure, vision screening, and determining growth chart data. Volunteer hours for all groups totaled 640.