CHOP Employees Support Homeless Health Initiative

Holiday gift drive a huge success

The spirit of the holidays was truly felt by many CHOP employees, especially those belonging to several Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), which organized a toy drive before the holidays.

Frank Lamacchia coordinated the donations from CHOP employees in the Wanamaker Building. They showed their generosity by setting out collection boxes in all of CHOP’s buildings and gathering, sorting and packing the vast number of toys and games donated to children residing in the Homeless Health Initiative (HHI) partner shelters. Thirty-five boxes of approximately 20 toys per box were delivered to People’s Emergency Center, Jane Addams Place, St. Barnabas Mission and Families Forward Philadelphia.

Thanks so much for helping to make the holidays brighter for children residing in shelters. Also, a special thank you goes to Jim Cartin from CHOP Facilities, who delivered all the donated toys to the shelters on his nonworking time. You are the best!

Science Rocks!

One newer Employee Resource Group — iStem — and HHI have joined forces to bring the core tenets of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to mothers and children living in shelter.

Through introductory coding techniques, one-on-one tutoring and volunteering with the SPARK fitness program, iStem has been a welcome addition to HHI programming. Residents in shelter will gain the opportunity to learn new skills to advance themselves in the rapidly growing STEM fields. HHI and iStem hope to increase diversity within STEM through education and support.

CHOP departments support HHI in mighty ways

Information Services

After visiting the HHI partner shelters where they saw programming in action, staff from the Information Systems (IS) Department offered to help bring electronic health records (EHR) to the families whose children are cared for during CHOP Night clinic visits. Currently, the notes from their visits are not recorded electronically because the physicians are not connected to CHOP’s EHR system.

A team of IS volunteers, led by Monique St. John, is working to bring laptop computers and the necessary electronic supplemental equipment to allow EHR implementation at the four shelters where HHI holds CHOP Night clinics. Once it is in place, all CHOP physicians will be able to access a child’s EHR (so specialists can see which medications a child is taking or learn about allergies, for example), and the family will also have access to the health record via a computer or cell phone through the MyCHOP portal.

IS also named HHI as the beneficiary of its annual fundraising drive. IS raised $10,049 by raffling off amazing baskets of goodies. HHI’s Karen Hudson purchased tickets and won The Shore gift basket in a random drawing. What an unexpected and pleasant surprise! We look forward to the ongoing partnership between the wonderful IS staff and HHI.

CHOP North at 3550 Market St.

The fourth floor registration team at 3550 Market St., location of the CHOP Campus primary care office, generously donated school supplies to the children in HHI’s shelters using the money they collected from dress-down Fridays. Thanks so much for sharing with children in shelters and helping them to get their school year started right. The gift of generosity is alive among CHOP employees!