This week is National Hospital Week — a week in which the country celebrates the health care institutions that care for patients and community members.

National Hospital Week celebrates local health care

by Scott Thoreson,

Administrator,

Mayo Clinic Health

System in Springfield

 

This week is National Hospital Week — a week in which the country celebrates the health care institutions that care for patients and community members. I want to reflect on some themes and highlight actions that showcase the efforts of Mayo Clinic Health System in Springfield and how we are connecting with patients and our service area.

 

Hospital Week Activities

I am proud to say that at Mayo Clinic Health System in Springfield we have a group of committed employees who routinely and continually give of their time and talents to support our community. We have made it an annual event the past several years to help the Springfield Area Food Shelf. For the past two years, we have collected food for the food shelf, and this year, we raised funds to enable the food shelf to purchase food. Final tabulations won’t be in until later in the week, but we should be in the neighborhood of $1,500 raised, which translates into almost $15,000 of food.

Come up and check out the budding artists as part of our annual third grade poster contest. Every year, I marvel at how the children use their imagination to capture their perspectives of hospitals — I guarantee it is good for a smile.

 

Our employees are responsible for Adopt a Highway and will be cleaning up our section of Highway 14 west of Springfield.  

 

Community Engagement

Besides events we are working on during Hospital Week, our involvement with the community is ongoing. We had a great Women’s Health Luncheon two weeks ago with approximately 80 women in attendance and heard wonderful information from our clinic physicians Jennifer White, M.D., and Kelsey Nylander, D.O., as well as our nurse practitioners Kristina Carlson and Ashley Schmitt. Shari Koll, a volunteer on our local advance care planning group, shared information about advance directives.

We are planning our Summer Wellness Challenge in which Springfield area businesses and organizations track activity levels and complete specific healthy tasks. We award weekly prizes, including a grand prize for the top-performing team at the end of the event.

Our organized community walks have begun and take place on Mondays at 7 p.m. at the tennis courts in Riverside Park. We walk the trail system for about 45 minutes. This is a good way to exercise and meet new people.  More of this story can be found in this week's Springfield Advance-Press.

Springfield Advance-Press

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