Community benefits for the past year have included programs offered in participation with Cheshire Medical Center. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene has also been actively involved with the Cheshire Coalition for Tobacco Free Youth, which is a program, designed to discourage smoking among youth. Involving local students in the Coalition has been key to its success. The Coalition is chaired by a DH K physician and its membership includes physicians and mid-level practitioners from our organization. The Coalition has been successful in initiating vendor compliance checks, vendor education programs, Smokeless Saturdays, education programs which are alternatives to court-levied fines, curricula development, teen cessation program in schools, logo design, public service announcement production and working to encourage local restaurants to become smoke free.
SNAP also serves as a forum for improved communications between school nurses and local physicians.
Nursing CEUs are awarded and attendance has averaged 45 attendees for each of the programs offered. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene also participates in Monadnock Partnerships , which has included a single point of entry for health and human services locally, a coalition to reduce unwanted pregnancies, a program to provide prescription medication for low income people and 136 community health education programs attended by 2,288 people. For additional information about the community benefits programs, their goals and outcomes please see the Community Benefits Report of Cheshire Medical Center. The Medication Assistance Program - helping low income people obtain prescription medications. Production of community health education directories.