Trinity Mount Carmel Hot Shots (Columbus, Ohio)
www.mountcarmelhealth.com
A group of nurses, social workers and mission leaders make up the Mount Carmel Health System's Healthy Hot Shots door-to-door immunization squad. By taking health services to the doorsteps of children and adults, they worked to turn the tide of infectious diseases such as measles, whooping cough, lockjaw and pneumonia.
Healthy Hot Shots, part of Mount Carmel's Community Outreach Program, has significantly increased the number of children brought up-to-date on immunizations in hard-to-reach neighborhoods. Mount Carmel administrators believe there may be a direct correlation between Healthy Hot Shots and local infant mortality rates. Since the program began in 1995, the infant mortality rate in Columbus has dropped to 7 per 1,000 live births, down from 11.7 a decade ago.
