Piedmont Healthcare’s community benefit program, which aims to improve the health and wellbeing of the communities the organization serves, has made more than $500,000 in community benefit awards.

Those grants were spread out among 44 nonprofit organizations that serve the local communities where Piedmont’s 11 hospitals are located. Piedmont serves communities in which 70 percent of the state’s population resides. These grants work to address two key areas identified in Piedmont’s 2019 Community Health Needs Assessment, as identified by the Internal Revenue Service: increasing access to care and addressing the opioid epidemic. Piedmont’s largest grants equaled $25,000.

“Our continued goal is to make a positive difference in every life we touch and our community benefit grant program is providing grants to more organizations this year and granting more funds overall,” said Thomas Worthy, vice president of government and external affairs at Piedmont Healthcare. “The communities that our hospitals are a part of become even stronger when nonprofit organizations, like the great ones with which we are partnering, become healthier and livelier through these grants.”

Among those receiving grants were:

The American Heart Association for its emergency cardio care opioid training.

The Sexual Assault Support Center for a new onsite exam room.

The Boys and Girls Club of the Chattahoochee Valley for its teen health programming.

Mercy Med of Columbus for funding clinical staff.

The grant program, which extends financial support to community-based nonprofit organizations providing specific health-related services and programs for at-risk and underserved populations, focuses direct service, access to primary and specialty care, community-based health support services and social determinants of health.

In addition to the grants program, Piedmont also provides other services and programs to the community, including free lab services for its charitable clinic partners, cash and in-kind donations to nonprofit partners, financial assistance to low-income patients and robust educational programs for aspiring health professionals. In Fiscal Year 2019 (ending June 30, 2019), Piedmont provided an estimated $314 million in community benefits to its communities.