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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. Dr. Karissa Merritt began questioning her patients about the health problems of their patients.
"During her conversations, she discovers that food insecurity is a terrible problem in our community," said Tom Faulkner, director of the Crosslines Community Resource Center, who is collaborating on the project with Merritt. "One in seven people is food insecure in Greene County."
"Everyone's health care needs are different," said Merritt. "For some people, it is food, for others, it is surgery.
Merritt was examining his patients with a series of questions about not having enough to eat or knowing where their next meal was coming from.
"The questions are: did you already run out of food before you had money to buy more food or were you already worried that the food you had did not last long enough until you had enough food? do you have money to buy more? " Merritt said.
If the patient answered in the affirmative, Merritt would send them a prescription to get food at Crosslines or Springfield Community Gardens … and not any food, but healthy food because she found that people who do not have enough to eat eat a lot higher risk of having other chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes or heart problems.
"We know that our patients who are struggling more are sicker," she said. "If they really do not know they're going to have a roof over their head or food in their children's stomach, they're not on board with their health care and as as doctors, we owe much more to our patients: filling their prescriptions. "
Through Merritt's initiative, physicians from across the CoxHealth system can now diagnose food insecurity in patients, which was not a common practice in the past.
"Having this conversation with people and asking these questions is pretty revolutionary in medicine," said Merritt. "It's something we do not do well, we can talk to them about all kinds of things, strange rashes, their genitals." But if you ask someone: "Hey, are you too poor to buy food? It's too far away."
The hope is to expand the program in the future.
"What about a pharmacy serving food in a hospital," Faulkner said.
Perhaps a revolutionary idea, but also revealing.
"It's one of the most humiliating things I've been involved in since meeting people where they are," said Merritt. "Food, water, shelter, is not it – these are the most basic human needs, and if they are not satisfied, we will do everything we can."
"It's a door we have not opened yet because we may have been afraid to open that door and see what's behind it," added Faulkner. "I am impressed by the fact that she has embarked on such a gigantic task of opening the door and seeing what are the major food insecurity issues and how it relates to health care in our community. "
In addition to providing access to healthy foods, the program also allows dietitians to educate patients on how to choose healthy foods.
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