The Rx to ease a community's burdens. A Detroit hospital helps low-income patients obtain prescription medication.
St. John Hospital and Medical Center found itself with an increasing volume of indigent and low-income patients who had few or no resources with which to purchase prescription medications. With funding cutbacks in various federal, state, and local programs, the hospital's pharmaceutical resources had diminished to the point at which it could only occasionally meet a patient's needs. The Indigent Pharmaceutical Fund was established in 1992. Once a staff member from the hospital's Social Work and Discharge Planning Department has exhausted all patient or community resources, he or she requests assistance for a patient. In the first year of operation, the fund assisted 278 patients at a cost of just under $5,000.
St. John Hospital and Medical Center, Detroit.
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D002410:Catholicism; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D005381:Financing, Organized; D016519:Hospitals, Religious / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D008489:Medical Indigency / Q000191:economics*; D008824:Michigan; D011203:Poverty / Q000191:economics*; D011306:Prescription Fees; D012947:Social Work / Q000191:economics; D014481:United States; D014505:Urban Population