Susan Weaver Joins Senior Management Team at Wake Med
December 2008
After seven successful years serving as Executive Director at Alliance Medical Ministry, Dr. Susan Tucker Weaver accepted the appointment as Senior VP at Wake Med Health and Hospitals. Dr. Weaver’s work at Alliance combined with her unique medical experience with patient care and a strong personal faith that gave her the energy to commit countless time and energy to Alliance and the plight of the uninsured.
She has been recognized with numerous awards including the News & Observer’s Tarheel of the Week, The Triangle Business Journal’s Healthcare Hero Award and was featured in the 2009 Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation Annual Report.
Dr. Weaver will remain on the Board of Directors at Alliance and will serve as Chair of the Development Committee. She continues her commitment to medical care of the uninsured by volunteering weekly as a provider at the clinic.
Thank you Dr. Weaver for your commitment to the Alliance Medical Ministry mission!
Welcome AMM Founder Sean Harrison as Alliance’s New Executive Director
February 2009
After co-founding Alliance Medical Ministry and serving as an active member of the Board of Directors, including as chair from 2000-2005 and 2007-2009, Sean Harrison was appointed Executive Director this past February. Sean has a diverse background with over 15 years of management experience in entrepreneurial start-ups and Fortune 500 organizations.
Sean’s passion for health care and the working uninsured began nearly 10 years ago when he and three members from Cary First United Methodist Church envisioned a ministry to fill the health care gap faced by the working uninsured. Sean, along with Dr. Charles Mann, Jack Stone and David Wilson, worked earnestly with many volunteers and early staff, including Dr. Susan Weaver, to make their dream a reality.
Sean graduated with a BS in Computer Science from the University of Maryland and relocated to Raleigh with IBM. After earning his MBA from Duke, Sean founded and was CEO of Netstation, which was acquired by Nortel Networks. Later he started WindWire, a wireless software & service company, acquired in 2003. In 2004-2005 Sean piloted a prepaid low cost health benefit program for uninsured workers. Prior to his appointment at Alliance, he was COO of Brightdoor, a real estate software & services company.
Sean and his wife Karen have 3 children ages 6-12. They are all active members of Cary First United Methodist Church.
Statewide, the percentage of uninsured North Carolinians increased by almost 15 percent from 2000 to 2004. In Wake County alone, nearly 19% of residents between the ages of 18-64 have no health insurance. The numbers are significantly higher for the Latino and African-American populations.
According to Kaiser Family Foundation, 79% of the uninsured reside in a working household. The most recent figures available show that utilization of WakeMed's emergency room rose nearly 9 percent from 2003 to 2004. It is estimated that nearly 60% of this volume is non-urgent, and a significant percentage is for primary care services.
WakeMed refers over 600 patients each month to AMM for follow-up services after an ED visit, and AMM receives another 100 referrals monthly from the community (Rex Hospital, Duke Health Raleigh Hospital, Wake County Human Services, Wake Health Services, etc.) There is a compelling need to care for uninsured patients in a way than minimizes their use of emergency room services, while maximizing the quality, continuity, and availability of the medical care they receive.
Alliance has been able to demonstrate a marked reduction in usage of the local emergency room for non-urgent needs. 86% of patients surveyed randomly had a reduction in their number of ER visits after establishing their care at Alliance. Also, 90% of employed patients surveyed experienced a decrease in the total days of work missed due to illness after establishing care at AMM.
Review of care of AMM diabetic patients reveals over 97% had appropriate glycosylated hemoglobin (HgbA1C) testing - the national average for all patients insured and uninsured is less than 50%. The average reduction in this value for our patients is 1.5%, resulting in markedly reduced risks of developing microvascular diabetic complications like blindness and kidney failure.
