Initiative focuses on health

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Jay County doesn’t fare well in many health-related statistics.

It has high rates of obesity (35 percent), smoking (20 percent) and physical inactivity (35 percent). All are above the national average.

A new initiative is underway in an effort to improve those numbers, Jay County Hospital CEO Dave Hyatt told his board during Wednesday’s meeting.

Jay County Alliance for Health — online at http://www.healthyjaycounty.com, which launched Wednesday — is an effort to bring local residents, businesses, social groups and other organizations together in an effort to make the community healthier.

“As we all know, we’ve got some issues in Jay County around our health statistics,” Hyatt said. “So we’ve pulled together a group of community leaders and formed a steering committee about how do we address this as a community, and how do we start tackling this …”

The alliance steering committee is made up of nine other organizations — Jay Community Center, Jay County Chamber of Commerce, Jay County Development Corporation, Jay County Health Department, Jay School Corporation, John Jay Center for Learning, LifeStream Services, Meridian Health Services and The Portland Foundation — along with the hospital. That group is focused on acting as a facilitator to improve Jay County in terms of physical activity, education and access to opportunities and resources for a healthy lifestyle and mental health.

The goal is to help businesses and other community groups take leadership roles and implement ways to promote healthy lifestyles.

“One thing we know as a hospital is we might be the health care providers, but when you look at spheres of influence, who actually influences folks’ behavior,” said Hyatt. “Maybe as health care providers we can provide tips, but it’s the employers driving improvements in the health of their employees.

“Instead of the hospital being responsible for it, maybe a church joins our alliance to help get access to the tools, but then that church might go out and do their own programs, their own initiatives for their members. We want to help them, but they’ve got to own their spheres of influence.

“It’s kind of a new way to do it, trying to create a sustainable model and a resource center for the community.”

Businesses and other groups interested in getting involved can call Vicki Delzeith of Jay County Hospital Foundation at (260) 726-1811 or visit the website and click on the “Become a Partner” link.

In addition to promoting overall health, having such an initiative in place can also help with grant applications, Hyatt said.

“I’m very excited to get this kicked off,” he added, noting that funding for the website and other start-up costs came to the hospital foundation through the Betty Starbuck Endowment at The Portland Foundation. “I think not only does this hopefully start to move the needle on healthcare in our community, but it starts to serve as a vehicle for our community. We’ve already got the partnerships in place.”

In other business, the board:

•Heard an updated on finances, which continue to be a struggle as admissions, patient days, radiology procedures, inpatient operations and physician offices visits were all down in April as compared to last year. The hospital’s revenue for the month was down about $1 million from 2016 and its annual revenue was down by nearly $8 million in the first seven months of fiscal 2017, leaving it with an operating deficit of $4.7 million in that span.

•Appointed Dr. Jennifer Wilson and Dr. Robert Brunk to the emergency medicine courtesy staff. It also re-appointed Dr. Mark Haggenjos to the active staff for family practice and emergency medicine and Dr. Jared Browning to the courtesy staff for teleradiology.

•Accepted the resignations of doctors John Wulf (neurology), Arthur Lyakhovetsky (geriatric psychiatry), Arvella Mullins (physician extender) and Brett Willis and Sara Sorrell (emergency medicine).

•Learned that 75 Jay County Hospital Auxiliary volunteers volunteered 1,308 hours in April. The organization also brought in $5,200 at its garden sale, $1,497 at its bake sale and $391 at its book sale.