St. John’s Riverside Hospital

Introduction

St. John’s Riverside Hospital was started in 1869 when a group of well-wishers from St. John’s Episcopal Church who were women opened a house to care for the unfortunate and sick people in the parish. Later, in 1870, it was transformed into a charitable institution and then became the first hospital in Westchester County. Up to now, the non-profit organization has continued to improve from just a charitable institution to a well-equipped hospital offering a broad range of health-related services and practicing fundraising activity to support itself as well as help to fulfill the needs of the poor members of the society. Being financially stable and open to cooperation as well as offering excellent medical care, nursing training, and continued preventive services and education, the St John’s organization add into a humanitarian effort to support the community, which forms the basis of its mission.

The Need for the Organization

Non-profit agencies play a significant role in the society by focusing on those areas, which are underutilized or which the profit sector may be unwilling to venture to engage in due to small gains from them. St John’s community is a living example of this activity since the organization has contributed to providing of care for those people who are mostly disadvantaged. One of the main needs of the St John’s society at the community level includes the following: it seeks to satisfy the healthcare needs of its patients and the community at wide. According to a report from St John’s Riverside Hospital (2015) community service plan, the organization provides convenient access to high-quality primary and special care to families using 12 different zip codes. These families are defined as medically underserved ones regardless of their financial status, sexual orientations, races or religions. Second, the organization supports community development through offering training and educational facilities to nurses to help them to serve the patients better. The establishment of Cochran nursing school, which is affiliated with the hospital, has allowed the institution to produce competitive nursing students who can guarantee high quality of the modern clinical services. There are professionals who are recognized in medical field due to their diverse knowledge concerning the healthcare sector. The need of the school was mainly related to the possibility be able to provide the increasing number of patients with care and qualitative services.

Besides, St. John’s Riverside Hospital was formed with the purpose to look at the young generation. It was achieved through the coordination with community-wide groups in order to help them to handle a variety of problems, which drugs abuse, unemployment, school dropout, overcrowded settlement, and poverty have caused. All these factors have led to the increase in crime and drug trafficking rates, especially in Westchester County. Therefore, the need of St. John’s Riverside Hospital lies in the necessity to help people of the community to solve the above mentioned issues. It also promotes health literacy among these groups through different campaigns and civic education. HIV/AIDS treatment is also an important direction of St. John’s society work. It offers HIV-related medical care, counseling, and testing as well as behavioral health services concerning stress and alcoholism. Finally, it is worth mentioning that St. John’s society aims at providing of healthy environment conditions, which involve clean air and water, sanitation, and community preparedness for the cases of disaster and natural calamities.

Fundraising Abilities

The fundraising skills of any non-profit organization derive from the goodwill of people as well as government and other agencies willingness to help in serving the community. According to the report of Citizen Audit Organization (2016), St. John’s Riverside Hospital benefits from various groups and, therefore, gets an opportunity to fund its ongoing projects and cover daily expenses incurred in running of the hospital. Its funders involve, for example, the Aon Foundation, total worth of grants of which of $ 75,000 on November 30th, 2015 was awarded to the St. John’s society in a bid to provide qualitative breast care for the patients (Aris, 2015, para. 1). In addition, other organizations including Lance Armstrong Foundation and New York State catholic health plan also participate in supporting and financing of St. John’s Foundation.

It is worth noting that apart from cooperation with the funders, the St. John’s Society is involved in planning and holding of various fundraising activities. They include the performing of the Annual Galas, the last of which took place in New York in 2015 and was aimed at helping to the emergency department in the hospital. This year, they hold the Golden Age of Hollywood, the goal of which will be to enhance surgical services. The institution also held The Marty and Iris Walshin Memorial Golf Outing in order to fund the intensive care unit. Finally, St. John’s society accepts checks from good-wishers, securities such as mutual funds and stocks, bequests, which include gifts like assets and donations of properties such as personal property and even insurance policies.

Usage of Professional Staff and Volunteers

The Foundation appreciates its volunteers who spend their time to provide healthcare services to patients. The roles of volunteers include answering telephones and filing patient details among others. Some of them are given a responsibility to take patients from one department to another. The hospital emphasizes their high value since they help patients to feel comfortable. For one to qualify as a volunteer, he or she has to attain the age of 18 years and above (Corti, n.d., p. 21). The designed program assists the volunteers in satisfying of their need to help other people; it also aids to deliver services more quickly and without costs.

The professional staff includes medical directors and other administrators who support the running of the hospital. They also provide healthcare and public service missions as well as offer a supportive framework, within which every employee is treated equally (Riverside Health, 2005). They give their staff the best environment and flexible shifts to avoid fatigue and enhance proper attendance to patients. The professional employees have the access to job training programs and many benefits such as insurance cover. Therefore, it increases the efficiency of their performance. The professional staff is guided by a set of rules that helps them in delivering quality services.

Financial Stability

The financial health determines the going concept of the organization since most non-profit institutions rely on the funds, which the donors provide, and such factor as sponsor’s restrictions may be present. It is, therefore, important to determine St John’s Riverside Hospital financial stability based on the following factors. First, the cash position should be considered. It includes the revenues and expenses that the organization incurs. For example, according to Citizen Audit group (2015), the hospital had a total of $ 242,987,832 revenues on December, 2014, which was much higher than the year total functional expenses standing at $237,278,695. It means that the organization is financially stable since it can cover the expenses by the available revenues. Second, the financial viability may be analyzed from the perspective of sources of income, which shows that the organization is much stable when the fundraising abilities are regarded. Lastly, the factor of financial management should be taken into consideration. It depicts how the funds are utilized. It is evident that there are no cases of corruption or mismanagement of finances at St. John’s Riverside Hospital and, therefore, it is financially stable.

Integration with Private and Public Organizations

According to Sekhri et al., (2016), an integrated partnership involves the governmental and private participants. Commonly, it is an association of health providers and financial managers. They conclude a long-term contract, according to which each party gets the access to private capital and knowledge needed for the developing or renovation of healthcare system facilities and agrees to provide big amount of people with services in those facilities for a long time. The hospital associates with the public and private organizations to address the needs of the community. For instance, it has formed the partnership known as Healthy Yonkers Initiative (HYI), the group of seventy members who gather together to consider and analyze the health needs of the citizen. Other formed companies educate individuals on the dangers of HIV and other chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes. The projects that they develop through the integration inform families about the proper utilization of healthcare system with the resources available.

Realizing that health is determined by different interrelated factors, the hospital seeks to connect healthcare with public health and community services to assist in attaining improved individuals’ wellbeing, professional care, and reduced cost of attention. As a reaction on the misalignment of available resources, a new idea of the integration of medical and social services has surfaced. Such system would organize, finance, and review the extensive choice of services that impact on health and include social support, public health, and community resources.

Conclusion

St John’s Riverside Hospital in Yonkers has the aim to offer excellent medical healthcare. From the analysis above, the hospital achieves it by the use of integrated cooperation with both public and private institutions. What is more, the organization values its volunteers and professional staff and ensures that all the activities are run as intended. To attain financial stability, St John’s Riverside Hospital encourages funders and well-wishers to participate in its operating and organizes activities that help in generating revenue. The openness to ideas has aided in achieving increase in innovations and simplicity in undertaking various tasks. The management of the hospital ensures that the employees treat the patients in a respectful and ethical manner. The collaborative healthcare network provides skilled services and promotes partnerships with other service agencies and social groups present in the community.

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