August 2022

National Health Center Week 2022

The Chemistry for Strong Communities

Last week, Esperanza Health Center – along with hundreds of health centers across the country – celebrated National Health Center Week 2022. National Health Center Week is an annual celebration with the goal of raising awareness about the mission and accomplishments of America’s health centers over the past five decades. During National Health Center Week (August 7 - August 13th), we recognized and celebrated the critical role health centers play in providing care to millions of individuals and families around the nation.

The week included a series of Focus Days, which highlighted specific areas of impact within the health care community. Here at EHC, we celebrated our wonderful patients, stakeholders, and staff who help drive our mission to provide high-quality, affordable health care in Jesus’ name!

(Pictured above from Left to Right: Ohsana Valle, Community Health and Wellness Coordinator; Anna Cole, Community Programs Coordinator; Natalie Martinez; Darlene Burton; Debra Ortiz-Vasquez, Director of Community Health and Wellness; and Maryann Salib, DO, MPH, Associate Medical Director for Community Health and Wellness, Population Health, and Clinical Quality Assurance)

Esperanza Health Center is proud to recognize our stakeholders for all of their support. This year, our Community Health and Wellness team honored two very important stakeholders in our community – Ms. Natalie Martinez, Stewardship Consultant and Financial Services Representative at Everence Financial (photo, 3rd from L),and Ms. Darlene Burton, one of EHC’s Community COVID-19 Ambassadors (4th from L). Together, Ms. Darlene and Ms. Natalie have partnered with us to better serve the health and wellness needs of our community with kindness, joy, and the love of Christ. We appreciate our stakeholders and are blessed to have them.

PATIENT APPRECIATION DAY + CHILDREN'S HEALTH DAY

We are grateful to have been serving the North Philadelphia Community for over 33 years! To honor our amazing patients, we gifted them a goody bag from our community partner, Health Partners Plans. Children also received a pencil box filled with school supplies and learned a valuable lesson in handwashing through a glitter experiment!

STAFF APPRECIATION DAY

The incredible value Community Health Centers bring to their patients and community is because of the diligent work of health center staff and volunteers – individuals who are committed to providing high quality care to patients. To show our appreciation for the incredible work our employees do each day, we catered in Wawa hoagies for all three of our sites to enjoy!

2022 COMMUNITY HEALTH QUALITY RECOGNITION BADGES

We are proud to announce that Esperanza Health Center was the recipient of six 2022 Community Health Quality Recognition (CHQR) badges presented by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA). These badges recognize Health Center Program awardees that have made notable quality improvement achievements in the areas of access, quality, health equity, and health information technology for the most recent Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting period. EHC's badges include the following:

DR. BRYAN HOLLINGER'S CELEBRATION OF SERVICE

This month, we had the honor of hosting a celebration for Dr. Bryan Hollinger, who had retired from Esperanza Health Center in early January after more than 27 years of dedicated service. Friends, family, and colleagues of Bryan's traveled in from all over the East Coast to hear him reflect on God's faithfulness throughout his years working at Esperanza, and learned more about the next season of ministry he and his wife, Judy, are being called to in Guatemala City, Guatemala with the international missions organization Serge. We are grateful to God for the many years Dr. Hollinger spent serving our patients and the North Philadelphia community as a whole. We are egaer to see how God will continue to move through Bryan and Judy as they step into a new season of ministry in Guatemala! 

To watch the Zoom recording of the celebration, click the link below and type in the passcode: MK@ca5@@

SAVE THE DATE: THE CORE CARNIVAL

Save the date of Saturday, October 8th for the GRAND OPENING of our new community wellness center – The CORE! We are so excited to celebrate this new adddition to the community with our neighors, family, and friends, and we hope to see you there! More details will be released in the following weeks, so connect with us on social media for the latest updates.