Jefferson Hospital opens Healthy Food Center for patients

Jefferson Hospital patients who lack access to food can now receive nutritious food items, education on disease-specific diets and additional resources for other social challenges they may face with the opening of a Healthy Food Center at the hospital.

According to a news release from Allegheny Health Network, on Sept. 18, representatives from Jefferson Hospital and the AHN Center for Inclusion Health joined Healthy Food Center employees to cut the ribbon for the new space.

The first such center debuted in 2018 at West Penn Hospital and in January, a second location opened at Allegheny General Hospital. To date, AHN said that both locations have provided patients and their families with more than 65,000 meals.

AHN clinicians screen patients for food insecurity by asking if they’ve been worried about adequate food supply in the last 12 months or if they’ve experienced financial hardships preventing them from purchasing enough monthly groceries for the entire household.

AHN describes the Healthy Food Centers as “food pharmacies.”

Patients who receive a referral from a medical provider can visit the Center – located in the hospital’s Medical Office Building – to pick up prepacked boxes of fresh produce and nutritious items. The boxes typically consist of roughly two to three days’ worth of food for all members of the household, and patients may visit once every 30 days for six months as part of their referral.

“On an annual basis, we see more than 50,000 patients in the emergency department alone, and we screen each for social challenges that could impact their overall health. Our recent reports estimate that nearly 60% of these patients face critical social barriers to health, with food insecurity and transportation cited most often,” Dr. Chong Park, president of AHN Jefferson, said in a news release.

Patients at Jefferson’s emergency department are screened through a program established in 2018 called the Front Door Initiative (FDI). Made possible through a $1 million grant from the Jefferson Regional Foundation, the FDI mobilizes AHN social workers to screen for social and economic barriers and connect at-risk patients to the appropriate resources through formalized partnerships with organizations like RubyRide, the Center for Integrative Health at Duquesne University and the Squirrel Hill Health Center.

“Chronic health issues like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity are only further exacerbated when patients report social risk factors, especially food insecurity. During a pandemic, patients with compromised immune systems also increase their likelihood for more severe health complications without proper food supplies,” said Madhusudan Menon, M.D., president of AHN Jefferson medical staff. “Food is medicine, and by offering an additional access point to nutritious food items, we’re vastly improving the health and overall quality of life for the patients and communities we serve.”