Community Benefits Overview

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center provides community benefits in many forms. You can read about some of them through the links below, with stories focusing on our community outreach, our research and our efforts for those in need. Also, read what our leaders have to say about this year’s Community Benefits Report, and check out our chart showing how the 2010 numbers break down.

Community Financial Support	Helping kids have fun—safely	Local seniors help in national study	Building a Healthier Lexington	Extended hours make a difference

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is proud to report an investment of $179.5 million in community health benefits last fiscal year. 

As the region’s only academic medical center, we contribute uniquely to the health and well-being of Forsyth County and the Piedmont Triad. In the last few years, as we established the guiding principles and medical center structure to best meet tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities, we have kept the community in mind. Our programs – which run the game from outreach to research to providing for uninsured and underinsured – bring benefits to all of the communities served by our campuses. The value of community health benefits provided by Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center last year grew by 22.7 percent.

Although many health-care providers provide charity care and health outreach, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center delivers additional, profound impact through its extensive community-based programs, research mission and training of tomorrow’s health-care professionals, many of whom will practice in the community.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center brings to the people of this region the resources of one of America’s top 50 medical centers. We are proud to be on the leading edge of medical knowledge, but we know that to fully address our mission of improving our citizens’ health, we must go above and beyond what is expected of a health-care provider. We must invest in programs and initiatives that address disease prevention, medical education, which is also nationally ranked, and research that addresses the specific health-care needs of our population. Our broad-ranging research areas include aging, alcohol, biomolecular imaging, brain tumors, cancer, diabetes, genomics, heart disease and prevention, hypertension, integrative medicine, minority health disparities, pediatric trauma, regenerative medicine, translational science and worker’s health. The range of our programs enables us to attract to our community some of the brightest minds in medicine and the biomedical sciences.

As reported to the North Carolina Medical Care Commission, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center invested $179,540,130 in programs defined as community benefits for the period of July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010. This includes charity care for patients but does not include bad debt from charges the hospital is unable to recoup – a number that totaled an additional $18.2 million.

The amount for community benefits includes the difference between what we are paid for treating Medicare and Medicaid patients and the actual cost of providing that care. Community benefits also include community health screenings, education and outreach, and funding for research and medical education.

On this website you will find a chart breaking down the financial support we provided to the community last year, as well as detailed highlights of specific ways we have benefited the public. It is our privilege to serve you and to offer this report.

John D. McConnell, MD CEO, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center		William B. Applegate, MD, MPH, MACP President, Wake Forest University Health Sciences Dean, Wake Forest School of Medicine
Thomas E. Sibert, MD, MBA President and Chief Operating Officer Wake Forest Baptist Health		Donny C. Lambeth, MBA President, North Carolina Baptist Hospital