Advocate Health Care Reports $571 Million in Community Benefits

Good Shepherd Hospital played an integral role in Advocate Health Care’s $571 million contribution in charitable care and services during 2011. This contribution represents more than one million lives touched by Advocate’s healthcare ministry.

“We are proud to have provided charitable care and services that
touched more than one million lives last year,” said Jim Skogsbergh, president
and CEO of Advocate Health Care. “We continually challenge ourselves to extend
our services beyond our hospital walls.”

Advocate provided $95.2 million in free and discounted charity care for
the uninsured and underinsured, and more than $295 million in care without full
reimbursement from Medicare, Medicaid, and other government-sponsored programs.

In addition to free and subsidized care, Good Shepherd
Hospital in partnership
with Advocate offered programs and services that responded to our communities’
unique needs. Some of these programs include: partnering with area schools to
improve the health and fitness levels of students, providing patient
transportation services to and from the hospital campus, community based fall
prevention programming, diabetes screenings and educational events within the
community and congregations, health ministry training for lay leaders within
congregations as well as numerous free health screenings to help community
members better understand their health and improve potential risk factors.

“Improving the health of our community is part of Advocate Good
Shepherd Hospital’s mission and we consistently look for ways to extend our health services into the community to positively impact people’s health”, says Karen Lambert, President, Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital.

Advocate also made significant investments in language assistance
programs, which offer patients access to interpreters and other non-English
patient education materials.  As part of its annual Community Benefits Report, a detailed breakdown of Advocate’s contributions was recently filed with the State.

In total, Illinois hospitals contributed annual community benefits of more than $4.6 billion in programs and services in their 2010-11 fiscal years, according to the sixth annual report issued by the Illinois Hospital Association (IHA). (The report can be seen at: http://tinyurl.com/86hb833.)

Despite the continuing economic downturn and Illinois’ challenging political and fiscal environments, the state’s hospitals contributed not only services and programs to benefit their communities but also billions of dollars in tangible economic benefits as major employers, job creators and purchasers of goods and services. Illinois hospitals pump $75.1 billion into the state’s economy each year, including more than $14.8 billion in salaries and benefits to employ nearly a quarter of a million people. In nearly half of the state’s counties, hospitals are among the top three employers.

About Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital

Advocate Good Shepherd in Barrington, Illinois
is a 169-bed acute care hospital with more than 700 physicians representing 50
medical specialties. It is part of Advocate Health Care, named one of the
Top Ten hospital systems in the U.S.
by Thomson-Reuters. Advocate Good Shepherd
Hospital is ranked highest in Illinois for quality and
patient safety according to Blue Cross Blue Shield’s 2011 Blue Star Report™. 
Advocate is a faith-based organization that exists to serve its
communities.  In 2010, Advocate provided more than $474,000,000 in charity care and services to its
communities.  For more about Advocate
Good Shepherd
Hospital: www.advocatehealth.com/goodshep

About Advocate Health Care

Advocate Health Care, one of the nation’s top 10 health systems based on clinical
performance, is the largest health system in Illinois
and one of the largest health care providers in the Midwest.
Advocate operates more than 250 sites of care, including 10 acute care
hospitals, two integrated children’s hospitals, five Level I trauma centers
(the state’s highest designation in trauma care) and two Level II trauma
centers, one of the area’s largest home health care companies and one of the
region’s largest medical groups. Advocate Health Care trains more than 2,000
residents, medical students and fellows at its three major teaching hospitals.
As a not-for-profit, mission-based health system affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America
and the United Church of Christ, Advocate contributed $571 million in
charitable care and services to communities across Chicago land in 2011.