A Letter From Our Chief Executive Officer

Julie Ann Freischlag, MDIn calendar year 2022, we continued our strong tradition of community giving at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, providing community benefits totaling $767.5 million. I am proud to share that this number amounts to $26.2 million more than in calendar year 2021. 

Community benefits include financial assistance, unreimbursed care, education and research as well as community outreach programs and services that are offered across Wake Forest Baptist’s 22-county service area. 

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continued through 2022, our faculty, physicians, advanced practice providers, teammates and students remained dedicated to elevating clinical care, conducting scientific research, training the next generation of health care leaders and innovating to meet the needs of the communities we serve – for today and for the future ahead.

Speaking of innovation, we launched our Virtual Hospital program, with the support of our colleagues in Charlotte. This service allowed more patients to be seen more quickly and closer to home at our hospitals in North Wilkesboro and Lexington. In the same spirit of innovation, we developed the COMPASS-CP digital platform which helps decrease the likelihood of patients suffering future strokes.

Wake Forest Baptist continues to invest in the communities we serve. We supported local organizations such as Senior Services and important projects such as the Metropolitan Village redevelopment that will help reduce health disparities and improve the quality of life for those in our community who are in greatest need.

We broke ground on our new Care Tower at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. This facility will allow us to greatly expand and enhance our emergency and critical care capabilities, while offering more opportunities for research and education.

Our first 24/7 urgent care clinic opened, which increases access and convenience for families, and we offered free sports physicals to more than 400 area high school student-athletes, as part of our Athletic Training Outreach Program.

In addition, our researchers continued to lead groundbreaking work that will change the way patients are cared for around the world and improve the health of our communities right here at home.

Our amazing medical students continued their service to those in greatest need, through our DEAC (Delivering Access to Care) Clinic, our Share the Health Fair, and many other projects throughout the communities we serve.

By partnering with Davidson-Davie Community College, we created the largest health care apprenticeship in North Carolina, to fill critically needed roles in our health system and, at the same time, give people in our community the education and skills that are needed to serve in a variety of health care roles. 

2022 concluded with us joining together with Advocate Health, now the third-largest health system in the country, with Wake Forest University School of Medicine serving as the academic core of the enterprise. As we continue building a second Wake Forest University School of Medicine campus in Charlotte and begin expanding clinical trials across a much larger footprint of the United States, I cannot wait to see the even greater impact we will have on the lives of those in the communities we now serve and far beyond. 

 

Dr. Freischlag signature

Julie Ann Freischlag, MD 
Chief Executive Officer and Chief Academic Officer, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist
Chief Academic Officer and Executive Vice President, Advocate Health
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, Wake Forest University