Steve McCrossan, Executive Director
NourishNC is thrilled to partner with New Hanover Regional Medical Center (NHRMC) in “Leading Our Community to Outstanding Health.” As part of its strategic emphasis on becoming a national leader in health equity, NHRMC launched its Health Equity Program. Health equity refers to the social reality that not all patients have the same access to health care, or the same ability or opportunity to access the care that is available. As a part of this initiative NourishNC and NHRMC are collaborating on several projects:
Farmer’s MarKids: NourishNC’s MarKIDs are a direct and hands on approach to improving the health of children in our community. We take free fresh fruits and vegetables to wherever kids need us: food deserts, parks, playgrounds, after school programs, high need schools, and other nonprofits. NHRMC has generously provided the funding and the volunteer power to bring literally tons of fresh food to children in our community.
Dietician Review: Planning the food that goes into our backpacks is a strategic process. Our bags must be light weight, kid-friendly, easy to prepare, and nutritionally dense. To help with this last part, NHRMC Wellness Dietitian, Sara Parrish, RDN, LDN, performed a nutritional review and recommended some great changes to our bags that are being implemented now. Stay tuned for more on this in a future post.
LEAN Training: NourishNC believes in “Kaizen,” or continuous improvement of our organization, our operations and services, and of ourselves. To that end, all of our employees attend SEAHEC’s 3 day Developing A Lean Foundation for LEAN Leadership in Healthcare Systems classes. NNC team members use the knowledge from that training to consistently cut costs, increase efficiency, and improve service delivery
Leadership/Collaboration: We are blessed to have NHRMC’s Corey Yingling MSN, RN-BC, and Shannon Thompson, FNP-C, serve on NourishNC’s Board of Directors. Corey is a LEAN Facilitator/Coach and brings those skills to bear on NourishNC’s board governance. Corey is also our liaison to NHRMC and spends countless hours organizing hospital volunteers, Farmer’s MarKids, and a gigantic food drive by NHRMC employees. Shannon is a Board Member Emeritus and NourishNC co-founder. We are also fortunate to collaborate with Dr. Philip Brown, MD (Chief Physician Executive), Scott Whisnant (Administrator of Community Engagement) and Joe Conway (Director of Health Equity and Human Experience) on a host of projects.
Thank you to all of NHRMC’s employees for helping NourishNC provide healthy food to hungry children, empowering them to succeed in the classroom and in their community. We can’t do it without you!
