Our Foundation       
President:  Dr. E. Coy Irvin, M.D.

The Escambia County Medical Society Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing healthcare services on a volunteer and funding basis through its members.  The Foundation was created in 1994.

Projects of the Foundation
To donate to either of these causes, mail your check to E.C.M.S Foundation at the address below. If you would like to donate specifically to one or the other, please note that on your donation.

We Care Program:      Founded in 1992 and now implemented by the Health Department, the We Care program assigns medically indigent patients to physician specialists who provide in-kind medical care as volunteers.  Patients must be referred by a physician. Determination of a patient's financial qualification and screening is done by the We Care staff of the Escambia County Health Department,  (850)595-6778. The Foundation regularly pays for the prescriptions of these patients, who have no other means to secure funding for this part of their treatment.
WE CARE provided $3.9 million in coordinated indigent care in Escambia County in 2007!

Signature Project
Donate today!  Call 850-478-0706

What is ElderCare?
A health recovery project that provides care up to eight weeks at home for elderly patients who live alone after being discharged from the hospital.  ElderCare will support these frail seniors back to full health, avoiding readmission and nursing home placement.   This project can save millions of dollars spent by hospitals on post-discharge readmissions when the DRGs have already paid the maximum allowed per diagnosis. 

This project has a two-fold purpose:

Goals:

 Basic Services:

Optional Service Menu, sliding scale fee based on patient income:

(These services are coordinated through Council on Aging.   Our patients do not go on their waiting list, but receive ElderCare services immediately, since our project is a separate entity, using the Council on Aging as a contractor.)

Patient Criteria
Elderly patients who are being discharged from a Pensacola hospital who are:

THE ElderCare Project WILL TARGET AT-RISK SENIORS WITH A SAFETY NET OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES TO MINIMIZE NEEDS FOR HOSPITALIZATION AND NURSING HOME PLACEMENT.

There are 11,140 persons 60 years or older living alone in Escambia County.  Many have no effective caregiver should they become ill.  The majority are women.  They are more likely to be poor.  Their ability to live independently in their own homes is often jeopardized by hospitalization.  The “sentinel event” of an illness serious enough to require hospitalization often triggers a spiral of declining health and decreased function resulting in re-hospitalization and nursing home placement. 

g)    medication management – review of all meds prior to discharge by hospital pharmacists; assistance with patient medication assistance programs through AAA’s Sunshine for Seniors program, the Rural Health Network, St. Joe’s, Health and Hope and Escambia Community Clinics

h)    nursing education and support through volunteer parish “nurse coaches” – an initial face-to-face session, followed by phone counseling that will focus on patient adherence, early identification of problems, and patient self-management skills

i)      home visits by nurse practitioners (ARNPs) for high risk patients

j)      group visits with Escambia Community Clinics and the volunteer clinics will be designed to serve not only appropriate “ElderCare” patients but others with multiple chronic conditions.

k)     “Junior Council on Aging” – establishing volunteer organizations in the middle and high schools

l)      Enhanced self-management education for patients through senior membership clubs

m)  Possible disaster management strategy for the target population (those living alone without caregivers)

n)    Future goals:  expansion to West Florida Hospital, Pensacola Navy Hospital, Santa Rosa County, and adding strategies for managing high-risk elders identified through the emergency rooms.
 

HOW IS ElderCare FUNDED?

The 30-patient pilot project began July 2006 with over $51,000 in funds raised by donations from physicians, hospitals, medical groups, private foundations, and caring individuals.  The co-pay that our patients will make is based on their income on a sliding scale basis so no one is eliminated that needs this transitional care.

Please help us sustain this project into an ongoing program!
 To donate, make your checks out to E.C.M.S Foundation and mail to the address below.  If you'd rather use a credit card, just call or email our office with your donation amount, card number, expiration date and billing address.

 8880  University Pkwy, Suite B       Pensacola, FL 32514
850.478.0706 office |  850.474.9783 fax     ecmsinfo@bellsouth.net 
Holly Strickland, executive director