Priority Funding Areas
Childhood/Adolescent Health
Desired Outcome: Increase access to healthcare and services, improve indviduals; health status and identify solutions to issues that affect children's and adolescent's health.
In many areas of our state, a school nurse is a child’s primary and perhaps only provider of health care. Expansion of services necessary to tackle the unmet treatment needs in children and adolescent health care is critical. We need to address access to care, education about care and life lessons designed to improve the future of South Carolina’s young citizens.
Community Health
Desired Outcome: Increase early identification of diseases and improve individuals' abilities to manage their diseases.
South Carolina is in the top of the nation for prevalence of many chronic conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Many underinsured and uninsured indviduals do not receive appropriate screenings for ealy diagnosis and do not have access to the necessary care for ongoing monitoring and treatment of their conditions.
Health Care and Free Medical Clinics
Desired Outcome: Increase the number of uninsured and underinsured individuals who receive needed medical care.
Many South Carolinians cannot get the medical services they need. Because of this, some people delay or neglect treatment and their health problems get worse. In order to address this, we will support efforts that help people get access to the health care they need. This includes local free clinics and similar entities that can address general health issues for all family members.
Mental Health
Desired Outcome: Increase the number of uninsured and underinsured individuals who havee access to mental health services.
Constrained resources for mental health services have contributed to an under appreciation of the role these services play in the lives of South Carolinians. Raising awareness of the impact that untreated mental health disorders can have, especially on children’s development and well-being, are key to minimizing the burden of this disease and stimulating appropriate levels of service.
Nursing Issues
Desired Outcome: Increase the number of credentialed nurses who are practicing in South Carolina.
South Carolina and the nation is experiencing a serious nursing shortage that threatens to compromise the health and will being of our citizens. A major contributing factor to this problem is a shortage of nursing professors at colleges and universities. Without an adequate number of nursing professors, the nursing programs will not be able o produce enough nurses to meet the demand. Considering this, we believe that the best way to increase the number of nurses is to focus on training those that will teach the future generations of nurses.
Prevention of Obesity
Desired Outcome: Decrease obesity rates, especially in children and adolescents.
Obesity is a serious public health epidemic. Obesity rates have more than doubled in the past 36 years, going from 15% in 1985 to 34% in 2006. We need to act to reverse this trend. Too many of us do not have a healthy balance in our lives. In communities hardest hit by obesity, families don't have the opportunity to make the needed health choices. We want to remove these barrieres for children and provide families with better access to health choices.hoices.
Research
While we firmly believe that all the areas we support should be important to improve health we also believe that research in health and technology availability to the low-income, uninsured and otherwise vulnerable populations are critical to raising the standard of health for our state’s citizens.
Other
The BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina Foundation is willing to consider funding of other areas not listed above. However, we specifically focus on improving access to healthcare and the overall health of the underinsured and uninsured. Letters of Intent must clearly outline how the proposed grant will impact our target population.