Author Archive

WUFT News
By Elly Ayres

Gainesville resident Hazel Walter, an 89-year-old sister to two and aunt to 10, could not believe how heavy the small lump in her chest felt after her June 21 diagnosis.

Breast cancer.

The benign lump she’d carefully monitored for 30 years had developed into stage one of the top cause of cancer-related deaths for women in the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In North Central Florida, the disease is second to cancer of the trachea, bronchus and lung […]

Lake City Reporter
By Steven Richmond

GAINESVILLE — WellFlorida was selected by the University of South Florida to be one of 10 statewide partners helping uninsured Floridians enroll in health coverage starting in October.

Because the state of Florida opted out of a Medicaid entitlement expansion and insurance exchange as part of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, it became eligible for grant programs from the federal government to facilitate the transition into the laws taking effect Jan. 1, 2014.

Those without health insurance after Jan.1 will […]

Gainesville Today
August 2013

MyHealthStory, a creation of CommunityHealth IT, a nonprofit organization, provides safe, secure communication between doctors and patients. Dr. David Willis, the company’s chief medical information officer and medical director; and co-director Kendra Siler-Marsiglio PhD, shared how the company is bridging the rural health gap, particularly in North Central Florida.

Q: How and why did CommunityHealth IT get started?
A: CommunityHealth IT started in 2009 when medical, economic development, and learning institution leaders decided that patients and medical providers in Gainesville and its surrounding […]

WellFlorida News Release

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (August 26, 2013)—Healthy Start of North Central Florida (HSNCF) announced this Monday an immediate expansion of services offered through the support of a federally awarded grant provided by the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV).

For over 20 years, Healthy Start of North Central Florida has continued to provide free prenatal and postpartum services to women and their children up to the age of three within 12 North Central Florida counties. The addition of MIECHV supported funding allows HSNCF […]

WellFlorida News Release

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (August 22, 2013)— WellFlorida has been selected by the University of South Florida (USF) as the consortium partner for 15 North Central Florida counties after USF recently received one of several “Navigator” grants for the state of Florida by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

WellFlorida will work in collaboration with USF as one of 10 statewide partners to hire local Navigators to help uninsured Floridians enroll for health coverage when the Health Insurance Marketplace opens October 1, 2013. Partners […]

University of South Florida News Release

The Department of Health and Human Services navigator award is the largest in Florida, and second largest nationwide.

The University of South Florida has been awarded a one-year, $4.2-million federal grant to help eligible uninsured Floridians who want in-person assistance with shopping for and enrolling in plans through the Health Insurance Marketplace, beginning this fall.

The Florida Covering Kids & Families program (FL-CKF) at the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center, received second largest award out of $67 million in “Navigator” grant awards […]

Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2013

CommunityHealth IT to bring up to 2.2 million patients’ records onto the Florida HIE via RelayHealth
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 18, 2013–The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), the sponsoring agency for the Florida Health Information Exchange (HIE), welcomed the not-for-profit CommunityHealth IT into the Florida HIE. CommunityHealth IT connects community healthcare providers and patients through its MyHealthStory(TM) HIE, which leverages RelayHealth to expand access and the reliability of data across varied care settings.

Developed by CommunityHealth IT and powered by […]

Citrus County Chronicle
By Gerry Mulligan, Publisher

An interesting report was produced a few weeks back that tells a lot of things about Citrus County, but it drifted under the radar screen of almost everyone.

A “Needs Assessment” survey was completed by the Citrus County Hospital Board working with the Well Florida Council, and it is packed with information about who we are. I love numbers, and here is what the report stated about Citrus County:

+ For instance, the highest unemployment rate in Citrus County can be […]

The Guardian
By Shane Bailey, MBA/HCM, MPharm, Director of Community Initiatives, WellFlorida Council Inc.

Florida ranks third in the nation for the number of people living with HIV. Of the 101,456 persons with HIV, 49 percent are African American. Although these numbers are discouraging, it is important to know that HIV cases in Florida have decreased significantly among all races and ethnicities over the last 10 years, but there is much we can do, individually and as a community, to prevent the disease from spreading.

HIV is spread […]

The Guardian
By Lauren Pollock, North Central Florida Cancer Control Collaborative Coordinator for the WellFlorida Council

Throughout the United States, African-Americans endure far worse health outcomes than other ethnicities for problems such as diabetes and heart disease. In the North Central Florida community, however, it is cancer outcomes for African-Americans that are among our region’s most pressing health issues.

According to a report by WellFlorida Council, a nonprofit health organization in Gainesville, the death rate of cancer in African-American residents in North Central Florida is higher than the […]