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Release Date: 07/15/2015
Mayor Holden’s Healthy BR Initiative wins National AHA Award
The American Hospital Association (AHA) announced today that Mayor-President Kip Holden’s Healthy BR Initiative is one of five programs nationwide that will receive the prestigious NOVA award this year for improving community health.
The Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative coordinates community-wide, collaborative efforts to improve health parishwide.
The Healthy BR coalition includes more than 70 partner organizations from local government, community organizations, faith-based groups, schools, businesses and health care providers, including the area’s five acute care hospitals - Baton Rouge General Medical Center, Lane Regional Medical Center, Ochsner Medical Center-Baton Rouge, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and Woman’s Hospital.
“This award is really honoring a collaborative effort, and shows what can be accomplished when health-care providers put aside their differences and join forces to work together for the common good of the community,” Mayor Holden said.
In announcing the award today, the AHA noted Healthy BR’s partner organizations worked together to conduct a Community Health Needs Assessment of the Baton Rouge area that highlighted the need to focus on obesity, HIV and AIDS, mental and behavioral health and emergency department overuse. Baton Rouge is the first community nationally to follow up a joint Community Health Needs Assessment with a common Implementation Plan that includes all major area hospitals.
With the help of a grant from the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Foundation, Healthy BR launched a number of programs to address community health needs, including farmers’ markets and a healthy corner store initiative; cooking classes; school-based and community education; HIV testing, education and public policy advances; patient navigation programs and transportation programs.
Healthy BR partners recently held the second annual Family Fit Day at City-Brook Park that spotlighted fitness activities such as the Mayor’s Annual Bike Ride and a 5K run to help combat obesity.
As Chairman of the National League of Cities’ Council on Youth, Education, and Families in 2008, Mayor Holden established the Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative as a movement based on communication, coordination, and collaboration to promote a better and healthier life for the citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish. Mayor Holden said that area hospitals and other Baton Rouge healthcare partners have played a key role in making the initiative successful over the last seven years.
Other 2015 NOVA award winners include Bithlo Transformation Effort in Orlando Fla.; Activate Whittier in Downey, Calif.; Community Health: Healthy Eating in Albuquerque, N.M.; and Blood Pressure Advocate Program in Rochester, N.Y.