RX for Health Provides Eastern CT Families with Fresh Produce at No Cost | Hartford HealthCare

RX for Health Provides Eastern CT Families with Fresh Produce at No Cost | Hartford HealthCare
<< Back

April 14, 2023

As the weather warms and farms and gardens are planted, the opportunities to eat healthier grow too – thanks to Hartford HealthCare’s Rx for Health program.&#13
&#13
The program, run by Backus and Windham hospitals’ community health teams, allows doctors to write prescriptions – but for farmer’s markets instead of pharmacies.&#13
&#13
They partner with eastern Connecticut social service organizations to ensure that local families can enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables.&#13
&#13
Pharm to Table Food Vouchers&#13
&#13
The RX for Health program began in Norwich in 2010 and expanded to Windham in 2021. The program provides vouchers to low income people for free fresh fruits and vegetables.&#13
&#13
The vouchers are redeemable at area farmers markets and grocery stores. Priority is given to those with children who are currently obese or malnourished, or at risk for either.&#13
&#13
Participants are also provided recipes for the different produce available at the markets as well as nutrition handouts to address common nutrition struggles and concerns. Special themed events are planned this season and individual nutrition counseling is available as needed and by request.&#13
&#13
“As a program, the Rx for Health’s fresh produce, registered dietitians, and health screenings empower families to make important dietary and lifestyle changes,” says Shannon Haynes, a registered dietician at Backus Hospital who oversees the program for the region. “The program enables families to try produce that they would not have been able and/or willing to purchase.”&#13
&#13
The Backus Hospital Rx for Health program vouchers are given out by HHC community partners:&#13

    &#13

  • United Family Community Services (UCFS)
  • &#13

  • Norwich primary care providers
  • &#13

  • Norwich pediatricians
  • &#13

  • St. Vincent de Paul Place food pantry
  • &#13

The Windham Hospital Rx for Health program vouchers are given out by HHC community partners:

    &#13

  • Generations Family Health Center in Willimantic
  • &#13

  • Covenant Soup Kitchen in Willimantic
  • &#13

Vouchers are redeemable at:

    &#13

  • ShopRite
  • &#13

  • A&S Asian market
  • &#13

  • Norwich Farmers Market
  • &#13

  • Backus Hospital Farm Stand
  • &#13

  • Willimantic Farmers Market
  • &#13

  • Windham Hospital Farm Stand
  • &#13

  • Willimantic Food Co-op
  • &#13

“Being able to bring together these organizations to improve the health of the community is what we are all about,” says Joseph Zuzel, director of Hartford HealthCare’s Community Health for eastern Connecticut.

If you are interested in receiving vouchers you can speak to your primary care provider in the Norwich or Windham area, or visit one of the social service agencies participating in the program.

Hartford HealthCare Announces New Digestive Health Institute | Hartford Hospital

Hartford HealthCare Announces New Digestive Health Institute | Hartford Hospital
<< Back

January 12, 2023

Hartford HealthCare has announced the formation of its Digestive Health Institute, the health system’s seventh and newest institute.&#13
&#13
The Digestive Health Institute is a fully integrated model of care focused on the management of all digestive diseases and disorders, ranging from essential preventative screening to the most complex care for advanced diseases. The Institute offers coordinated, personalized and convenient care across Hartford HealthCare’s acute care hospitals, surgery and endoscopy centers and neighborhood locations throughout Connecticut.&#13
&#13
> Link with the Digestive Health Institute&#13
&#13

From remaining to appropriate: Vice President of Functions Lindsey Meehan, PA-C, Brett Schipper, MD, a surgical oncologist, Jeffrey Nestler, MD, a gastroenterologist.
&#13
&#13
Led by Jeffrey Nestler, MD, a gastroenterologist, Brett Schipper, MD, a surgical oncologist, and Vice President of Functions Lindsey Meehan, PA-C, the Hartford Healthcare Digestive Health Institute promotes medical professional collaboration throughout a number of specialties like gastroenterology, surgical and medical excess weight decline, normal and colorectal surgical procedures, elaborate hernia and belly main health, hepatopancreaticobiliary surgical procedures, GI oncology, diet, behavioral health and other individuals.&#13
&#13
“Building on the collaboration that has presently taken spot about the previous numerous several years by several colleagues, our digestive health and fitness expert services have developed a lot more robust, obtainable and normal across our technique of treatment,” claimed Hartford Healthcare President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Flaks.&#13

“Together, this staff will proceed to advance the institute’s plans and companies for a wide array of digestive conditions.”

&#13
With a sharp target on excellence and innovation, the Institute also presents the most highly developed diagnostic and therapeutic interventions readily available and adheres to optimum countrywide requirements for top quality and protection throughout the overall health program.&#13
&#13
The Digestive Well being Institute joins Hartford HealthCare’s existing world-course institutes: Behavioral Overall health, Cancer, Coronary heart & Vascular, Neuroscience, Orthopedic, and Urology and Kidney. Considering that launching its institute model in 2014, Hartford Health care has productively extended expertise deeply into our communities, creating constantly increased high-quality and increased accessibility to sub-specialty treatment throughout the health and fitness system.&#13

Hartford HealthCare opens new workspace

Hartford HealthCare opens new workspace

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — Hartford Healthcare formally opened its doors to a new, fantastic workspace in the heart of downtown Hartford on Thursday, investing in the cash town, innovation and its colleagues.

“This was built with the notion to reignite Hartford,” Hartford Health care President Jeffrey Flaks stated in the course of a ribbon chopping for the new 110,000 sq. foot creating. “To bring the persons we do enterprise with from all over the state, and all over the state, here to Hartford.”

Flaks explained that people waiting eight to 10 months for a actual physical, or getting drastic variations in lifestyle expectancy primarily based on a person’s zip code, is unacceptable.

“We have to do something about it,” he stated. “Health care have to be reimagined.”

The facility is at the corner of Trumbull and Pearl streets. Flaks said the workspace’s structure, though not the least difficult to build, was deliberate. There are no straight strains, he said, but it necessary to be that way simply because “we will not coloration inside the traces,” he stated. “We are likely to adjust in which the traces are.”

With healthcare selling prices outpacing inflation, he reported that the facility wants to go after transparency.

“Hartford Health care, if we are purposeful, can increase the tide for so several people, and that is section of our reason,” Flaks stated.

About 700 men and women will function in the building.

Flaks declared at the ribbon cutting that Hartford Healthcare that the program is partnering with Google to indicator a partnership to go Hartford HealthCare’s knowledge to the Google Cloud. Hartford Health care is utilizing the $4 million in personal savings from the partnership to reinvest in a joint venture with Google for a “health care accelerator” to link clients to their companies, according to Flaks.

Google will also make a $10 million investment decision in the joint undertaking. The success of that challenge, Flaks said, will be applied all-around the environment.

Gov. Ned Lamont claimed the COVID-19 pandemic showed the worth of the healthcare process, but also how healthcare demands to be extra reasonably priced, obtainable, and long lasting for every person. Connecticut, he reported, wants to stand with each other.

“If you don’t have wellness treatment, and you never have well being care, and if you never have a vaccination, you’re not safe, and none of us are harmless,” Lamont stated. “It really brings home the that means ‘we are all in it with each other.’”

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin explained that the facility reveals that the company not just delivers wellbeing treatment, but exhibits a dedication from the “economic engine” to push innovation and financial commitment.

“You produced the deliberate decision to devote in Hartford, to commit in this neighborhood, and I am so deeply grateful to you and your team at Hartford Health care for earning that conclusion and building that commitment,” Bronin stated.

He highlighted the healthcare system’s efforts for the duration of the pandemic, which integrated organizing testing at homeless shelters.


Dr. Jim Cardon, Chief Scientific Officer at Hartford Health care, reviewed what the campus signifies and why it is so significantly more than just a grand opening.

See a complete reside interview with Cardon in the video under.