Civic Association Working for Better Health Care in Palm Beach
By Mr. Michael Stein, Co-Chairman Civic Association Health Care Committee
The Palm Beach Civic Association Health Care Committee was first established in 2003 in recognition of the universal concern by our citizens over the availability and quality of health care in our area.
The mission of the committee and commission is to serve as a two-way conduit of information and ideas between the community and our health care providers.
Taking his cue from the Civic Association, our mayor appointed the Town’s Medical Care Commission in 2005, recruiting many of the Civic Association’s committee members and chaired by our own Dr. Michael Dennis. The commission continued the Civic Association’s work on behalf of the Town until 2008 when it finished its term, and all of its members returned to the Civic Association where our Health Care Committee resumed its activities.
The committee has met with and coordinated the activities of providers from The Miller School of Medicine in Miami, to our local hospitals, physicians, and our very wonderful Town of Palm Beach Fire-Rescue Department; which, is our first responder and which provides really excellent care.
We have also met with the County Medical Society, the County Commissioners, and the Health Care District to discuss matters of mutual concern and keep them focused on the health needs of our community, particularly in such areas as hospital improvement, academic medicine, physician availability, and trauma services.
A current example of the results we achieved is the very recent installation of Therapeutic Hypothermia at Good Samaritan Medical Center.
This was first urged upon us by the Town Fire-Rescue Department when they asked us to stress its importance in our meetings with Good Samaritan. Therapeutic hypothermia is a process whereby the body is cooled in heart failure patients to protect the brain from oxygen deprivation. It has saved many lives… and we were instrumental in getting it installed at Good Samaritan.
Both the commission and committee focused, early on, on the need for academic medicine programs in our local hospitals and we have already seen some success in the inauguration of several residency programs in this area by The Miller School of Medicine. We all know that an academic environment produces better patient care and helps the recruitment of doctors for the community… real issues that merit and will have our continuing concern.
We were also involved in encouraging the Cleveland Clinic to open a medical practice just across the Intracoastal and we maintain close relationships with their top management as we do with other local hospitals, some of whom have actually hosted our committee meetings and have provided special tours of their facilities and programs. And of course, we work with Dr. Campazzi’s Island Medical Center in the Royal Poinciana Plaza, the only such facility on the island, and as indicated above, with our own Fire-Rescue. We have coordinated with Dr. Campazzi and Fire-Rescue to provide seasonal flu and H1N1 flu vaccine shots for our residents, many of which were given in our Civic Association Community Room.
The Health Care Committee also serves as a regular source of helpful hints and information through our programs and publications, including our very popular “Monday Morning in Palm Beach,” and our website. The latest addition is the Health Care Issues web page:
www.PalmBeachCivic.org/Healthcare
The Health Care Committee will, of course, continue with all these roles as we maintain our focus on the three areas of concern as expressed by our citizens: Heart, Stroke, and Emergency Medicine. We are happy to report that there has been considerable improvement in all of these services at the local hospitals, due in part to the work of the committee and the active participation of each of its members who are to be commended for their selfless contribution of time, effort, and intellect.