Hope Amid Despair: Recovering from Hurricane Helene

By Heather Snyder and Ashley Austin

We have all witnessed the heart-wrenching images of devastation left by Hurricane Helene over the past couple weeks. As North Carolinians, we know that deep pain and loss, as well as adverse effects on health and wellbeing, will be felt in our communities for years to come.

Yet, in the midst of this devastation, we find hope. Our hope stems from seeing firsthand how our communities are rallying to recover and to help neighbors in need.  And we’re inspired by the resilience, sacrifice and determination of so many people in these storm-ravaged communities, especially the primary care practices we serve. Every day, they are working tirelessly to care for their patients and help them begin the process of recovery. 

As members of Aledade’s North Carolina field team – which provides personalized support to streamline value-based workflows for our primary care practices – we work with these practices every day.  But the last two weeks have been extraordinary as our team mobilized financial and other support to  practices by delivering emergency resources ranging from mobile internet connectivity to bottled water and portable toilets to the leveraging of text messaging capabilities to stay in touch with and care for their patients.

Here are a few examples of how these efforts enabled access to care in local communities:

• Blue Ridge Community Health Center is providing free health care, behavioral health counseling, and food and water to their communities by any means necessary. This includes home visits by clinicians using all-terrain vehicles (ATV) and mobile health units. 
• Appalachian Mountain Health quickly deployed their mobile health unit and their clinicians are delivering health care while also helping patients secure transportation, food and housing. 
• Mountain Community Health Partnership continues to adjust clinical workflows to care for patients without a functioning phone line to make appointments. 
• East Asheville Family Health Care clinicians are traveling by helicopter, ATVs and other means to provide care for patients in the most remote areas of Western North Carolina while other practices are donating supplies and organizing other grassroots efforts to help their communities.

At Aledade, we are committed to our core value of Service and to do what is good for patients, practices and society. Living out this core value is natural given that the Appalachian culture holds family and neighborliness as a pillar of life. Our Western North Carolina primary care practices will serve a critical role in ongoing response efforts for years to come. We firmly believe that healthy primary care practices help build healthy communities. We’re proud to play a small role in the vital effort to help hurricane-affected communities restore health and wellbeing as quickly as possible.

Heather Snyder and Ashley Austin are senior market managers in North Carolina for Aledade.