Aurora Health Care©

Community benefits activities

The types of community benefit activities Aurora provides are varied and diverse. These are just a few examples of programs meeting community health needs throughout Aurora's service area.

Free care for uninsured

Aurora Walker's Point Community Clinic
Walker's Point Community Clinic The Aurora Walker's Point Community Clinic at 611 W. National Avenue in Milwaukee is a safety net for Milwaukee's most in-need, uninsured patients. It provides urgent care, family practice and specialist services. In 2007, Aurora Walker's Point caregivers completed 12,516 patient visits for approximately 4,000 patients whose average income is $800 a month.

Salvation Army Clinic
Aurora Walker's Point Community Clinic also serves the Salvation Army Clinic for homeless persons, providing 165 visits per month for approximately 850 individuals, 24 percent of whom are children. Average income for patients of the Salvation Army Clinic ranges from $200/month to no income at all. Walk-ins are accommodated, and Aurora physicians volunteer services to this clinic one night per week.

Aurora Health Care Parish Nurse Program

Aurora parish nurses are central figures in the churches they serve, combining faith with nursing to provide a vital link to people in need at all stages of life. During the first six months of 2008, Aurora Parish Nurses made direct contact with 8,495 parishioners, served 9,608 people in group settings, conducted health screenings for 5,837 people and assisted 420 individuals with completing Advance Directives.

Aurora parish nurses also serve as health counselors who listen and respond to health concerns of individuals and their families. Concerns such as medications, blood pressure, nutrition, weight control and end-of-life issues are everyday matters for Aurora parish nurses.

Safe Mom Safe Baby

Begun in 2005 with funding from the Wisconsin Partnership Fund, Safe Mom Safe Baby, a program unique to Aurora, was developed to provide an evidence-based, collaborative model for delivering sensitive and effective services to pregnant women experiencing domestic violence.

In 2008, Aurora's Safe Mom Safe Baby program expanded to the Martin Luther King Heritage Center, Aurora Clarke Square Family Health Center and other community agencies to provide outreach to the Latina population through a half-time bilingual domestic violence advocate and to increase screening among a predominantly minority population in low-income areas. Safe Mom Safe Baby also helps clients find primary care and preventive services, and addresses socioeconomic factors that influence health.

Free Breast Screenings

Breast care coordinators at Aurora Lakeland Medical Center in Elkhorn, Aurora Medical Center in Kenosha and Aurora Burlington Memorial Medical Center work with uninsured and underinsured women who need mammograms, but cannot pay for them. They post flyers in the community and also rely on physician referrals to promote the program, which covers mammograms and ultrasounds for the early detection of breast cancer for women. In 2007, the three hospitals provided 68 women with a free mammogram through the program. During the first half of 2008, 30 women received a mammogram.

Senior Care Resource Connection Expansion

  • Senior Resource Connection Program An elderly woman who put all her medications in a jar and was managing her medications by chance...
  • A gentleman in Walworth County with rapidly progressive dementia whose wife was experiencing "caregiver burnout"...
  • An elderly woman who needed a breast biopsy right away and couldn't wait for her disability insurance to kick in...

These are the types of situations described recently by the nurses in Aurora's Senior Care Resource Connection program, and the reason why the program was established in 2002 to serve seniors in Racine, Kenosha and Walworth Counties.

Aurora's Senior Care Resource Connection nurses assist seniors and their families via home visits to assess needs, meet other family members, explore the best available services to help seniors remain independent in their homes, and guide them through the maze of paperwork whenever that is required.

In 2007, community benefits planning revealed the need to expand the program into West Allis, and in 2008 Aurora West Allis Medical Center hired an additional RN to join the team. Together, Senior Care Resource nurses averaged 316 referrals per month during the first six months of 2008.

Senior Care Resource nurses make life easier and better for older adult patients and community members. Their services are provided at no cost to those who are referred to the program.

Focus on the Family: Aurora Family Service

Aurora Family Service has for many years recognized the need to provide healing for families experiencing the psychological issues that can lead to – or result from – poverty. They work with families to help them find their inner strength and resources to overcome financial, physiological and medical challenges.

Aurora Family Service care coordinators travel over 140,000 miles each year to visit with more than 10,000 families in their community. Aurora Family Service family therapists provide over 5,000 hours of counseling to over 1,343 individuals and families, and 40% of the total counseling hours are provided beyond the Aurora Family Service office and clinic on W. Highland Boulevard.

In addition, graduate training provided by the Aurora Family Service Family Therapy Training Institute enables therapists to become credentialed in marriage and family therapy in Milwaukee, demonstrating how benefits of the Family Therapy Training Institute are returned to the community. Three therapists who graduated in 2007 were able to pursue their education through a David Hoffman scholarship offered by Aurora Family Service to help fill the critical need for therapists in underserved inner-city neighborhoods of Milwaukee.

Dr. Chava C. Lee was the first Hmong therapist in Wisconsin to achieve clinical membership in the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. In his words: "I came to the Family Therapy Training Institute after completing my master's degree, but I wasn't quite ready to take on the tough work of dealing with real families with multiple problems. After two years of learning in the classroom, clinic and in families' homes, working with the best minds in the field, I now have the skills, experience and confidence to make a difference in the lives of troubled families."

Learn more or partner with us

The stories told here offer a glimpse into the wide array – and scope – of our community benefit programs and initiatives. Please let us know if you would like to partner with us in providing community health services.

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