ChristianaCare

(WILMINGTON, Del. – May 11, 2021)

ChristianaCare is partnering with Lutheran Community Services to tackle health disparities through food with the launch of the Delaware Food Farmacy. Poor nutrition is often an underlying cause of poor health and a risk factor for many health conditions. The program combines health care and food delivery and nutrition education to create health and help people to thrive. The goal is to help patients achieve long-term health improvements by providing them with holistic care.

“We know many of our neighbors face food insecurities that have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Erin Booker, LPC, vice president of Community Health and Engagement at ChristianaCare. “Through this partnership we are minimizing barriers to equitable care by offering radical convenience and wraparound support.”

The Delaware Food Farmacy is available to Medicaid patients suffering from poorly controlled diabetes, hypertension or heart failure. Along with weekly food deliveries, participating patients also receive extensive clinical care, ongoing disease management, nutritional education and personalized social care.

Each participant is enrolled in the program for six months and receives enough food for 10 meals per week for each member of the household. One family of four will receive enough food for approximately 1,000 meals over the course of the program. Participants use an order form to select among fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, lean meats, low-fat dairy, beans, grains and other healthy foods. Each household also receives a welcome kit based on a kitchen inventory survey. That kit may include cutting boards, mixing bowls and other essential items that they might need in order to prepare meals.

“Our partnership enables the type of innovation required to meet an important need,” said Rob Gurnee, executive director of Lutheran Community Services. “By utilizing Lutheran Community Services’ food as medicine and making it easily accessible, in combination with ChristianaCare’s health care expertise, we can make positive health outcomes possible for some of the most vulnerable in our community.”

The Delaware Food Farmacy launched in February and expects to deliver more than 50,000 meals through the pilot phase of the program.

Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, ChristianaCare is one of the country’s most dynamic health care organizations, centered on improving health outcomes, making high-quality care more accessible and lowering health care costs. ChristianaCare includes an extensive network of primary care and outpatient services, home health care, urgent care centers, three hospitals (1,299 beds), a freestanding emergency department, a Level I trauma center and a Level III neonatal intensive care unit, a comprehensive stroke center and regional centers of excellence in heart and vascular care, cancer care and women’s health. It also includes the pioneering Gene Editing Institute.

ChristianaCare is nationally recognized as a great place to work, rated by Forbes as the 5th best health system to work for in the United States and by IDG Computerworld as one of the nation’s Best Places to Work in IT. ChristianaCare is rated by HealthGrades as one of America’s 50 Best Hospitals and continually ranked among the nation’s best by U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek and other national quality ratings. ChristianaCare is a nonprofit teaching health system with more than 260 residents and fellows. With its groundbreaking Center for Virtual Health and a focus on population health and value-based care, ChristianaCare is shaping the future of health care.

Lutheran Community Services (LCS) is a Wilmington based nonprofit organization with a 62-year history of helping vulnerable populations meet essential needs. LCS operates a network of 14 food distributions, provides homelessness prevention financial assistance, and is Delaware Quitline’s pharmacy benefit manager for smoking cessation. Its trained staff, over 800 dedicated volunteers, and a committed group of individual, faith-based, corporate, philanthropic and government supporters enables LCS to create opportunities for success in the lives of its clients. For more information on LCS, visit www.lcsde.org.