Board member featured in Grid Magazine
HealthSpark Foundation Board member Chinwe Onyekere was featured in a story about health systems breaking out of traditional roles to support health in a more holistic way. The story was published in Grid Magazine on February 4, 2016.
Crossing the Line
by Alex Vuocolo
Lankenau Medical Center, a 93-acre hospital complex, is located just across the border of West Philadelphia in the Main Line community of Wynnewood. For a patient crossing the city line, the transition is almost immediate: The auto shops and fast food joints that line Lancaster Avenue fade into green suburban neighborhoods. Corner delis and discount grocery stores give way to high-end supermarkets and boutiques. The sidewalks and bike lanes taper off into narrow road shoulders.
There is another, less visible difference between the two communities straddled by Lankenau in Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which tracks public health metrics nationally, ranks Montgomery County the sixth healthiest county in the state out of 67. Philadelphia County ranks dead last.
Reckoning with that divide is part of Chinwe Onyekere’s job. As associate administrator at Lankenau, she heads up community programs focused on meeting the health needs of all patients. In her view, hospitals as institutions have a clear mandate to serve the communities around them.
“The role of the provider is not only to address health care, but to address social issues,” says Onyekere, 40.