LUMBERTON — A $137,500 grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust will help Southeastern Health’s patients receive transportation for follow-up appointments and pharmacy trips after they have been discharged.
“This grant will be a way to help to provide transportation to our community and help the residents of this county who are unable to get transportation to their appointments,” said Zachary Stamper, team leader and Southeastern Home Medical Equipment manager. “This grant, along with the program’s volunteers, is an asset to this community and I am glad to be a part of helping our community.”
The long-range goals of this new grant include organizing software for coordinating transports, and expanding mileage reimbursements to grow the program from four to 12 drivers. Expanding the service will allow drivers to serve a larger area, and to include more primary care, behavioral health and pharmacy care clinic visits.
Patients who qualify for this program must be adult, high-risk patients who have been diagnosed with chronic health issues and are financially disadvantaged. Patients must also be identified as frequent users of Southeastern Regional Medical Center and its emergency department because of complications related to their chronic health issues, likely exacerbated by lack of follow-up care following a previous medical incident.
The grant will allow for piloted expansion of a program that started in 2016, U-Care Connections, which is part of the Compassion for U Congregational Wellness Network, a Southeastern Health initiative that partners with local congregations to improve health in communities. Since its creation, the program has provided more than 1,700 transports, reporting 63,403 miles driven.
The Rev. William Gentry has served as one of the four “Connectors” for the original program. When Gentry received the first recruiting call for volunteer drivers from Southeastern Health Pastoral Care Coordinator the Rev. Dean Carter, he said he and his wife had prayed about the issue of medical transportation barriers the night before.
“We are thrilled this new grant is in place to reach more people with multiple trips, especially those who are cancer patients, whose treatment on a continual basis is vital to their cure,” Gentry said.
Drivers often offer prayer or connections to other forms of ministry to the patients being transported, he said.
“We address the spiritual aspect of their care in addition to the medical aspect of their care,” Gentry said. “The two work together. The patients which I have encountered have greatly appreciated a time of prayer before getting out of the car and going in to get their treatment. And we try to use our knowledge base of the community to form a network that can be beneficial to their well-being.”
The program originally started with a six-month mini-grant for $500 per month from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, which was part of a larger grant Wake Forest received from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust. The original mini-grant was rolled over four times before this new, larger grant was put in place. The original grant also helped collect data that showed that providing transportation for patients for follow-up and pharmacy needs cut down on the rate of hospital readmissions.
The U-Care Connections program utilizes volunteer drivers, who use their own vehicles to transport patients. Patients must be ambulatory, or able to walk with minimal assistance.
