National Rural Health Association (NRHA) announces 2023 Rural Health Fellows

LORHN's CEO, Andrea Stephenson, MBA, MHS, FACHE, has been named one of seventeen professionals throughout the nation for this year-long intensive Rural Health Fellows leadership program. She has dedicated nearly 30 years of her life and work to reduce health disparities through health planning, service coordination, program development, evaluation, and advocacy throughout South Florida and around Lake Okeechobee. She has been a steadfast and fierce advocate for rural, minority, and marginalized communities at the local, community, state, region, and national levels along the way and will continue to do so. Congratulations, Andrea!

Leah Suarez, Founder and President of Our Village Okeechobee shares highlights and successes from their back-to-school activities. Our Village Okeechobee is a non-profit agency and a close partner with LORHN/HCSEF. First, Our Village provided the new teachers in the Okeechobee County School District with nearly 80 “swag bags” to include much-needed supplies on their first day! On Saturday, 595 backpacks with supplies were provided to local families at the Expo. That’s not all, though. Families were able to meet with over 40 agencies, churches, businesses, and education vendors to learn more about services available in Okeechobee for children and families.

LORHN's Program Manager and Community Health Workers presented information about their free services to Buckhead Ridge residents at their monthly HOA meeting in July.

Okeechobee Children's Mental Health System of Care invited LORHN to be a guest speaker for their Family Night presentation on March 6, 2019. Read the article to learn more about health literacy, why it's important, and what LORHN is doing in Okeechobee and surrounding communities to make a difference.

Article and short audio clip share the story of a widow living in a rural California town that uses telehealth to receive therapy twice a week. The article highlights the challenges rural residents experience accessing care and the positive difference telehealth can make to improve their access to various doctors and specialists. Some challenges telehealth can help overcome include geographic isolation, missed work, driving time, fuel cost, lodging expenses when providers are hours away and more.

Partnering to improve community health benefits both businesses and local health departments, according to a new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center and the de Beaumont Foundation. In describing several partnerships, the report identifies the following characteristics for success: 1) motivated and committed leaders, 2) equal and complementary participation, and 3) joint strategic planning to establish common ground.