Wellmark Foundation Grant to Support Comfort Care Pilot Program for Children in Northwest Iowa

October 8, 2007

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Contact:
Angela Feig
515.245.4551
feigab@wellmark.com

(Des Moines, Iowa) – The Siouxland Human Investment Partnership in Sioux City received a $48,233 grant from The Wellmark Foundation to develop a pediatric comfort care pilot program in northwest Iowa.

“Children’s Comfort Care is a pediatric palliative care model specially designed to serve seriously ill children in Siouxland,” says Tammy Thomas-Mahaney, palliative care team leader at the Siouxland Human Investment Partnership. “The goals of the program are to provide pain and symptom management and community support services to children and their families throughout the disease process, therefore positively impacting their end of life,” says Thomas-Mahaney.

In this first phase of the program, the partnership will gather data and test the pediatric care model through a pilot project of 20 to 30 children and families. The majority of services will be provided in Woodbury and Plymouth Counties in Iowa, but care will also be available in rural areas of Sioux and Monona counties in Iowa, and Union and Lincoln counties in South Dakota.

Program partners include Hospice of Siouxland/Siouxland Palliative and the Siouxland Pediatric Coalition. For more information about Children’s Comfort Care, contact Tammy Thomas-Mahaney at mahaneyt@hospicemail.com or (712) 233-4192.

The Wellmark Foundation has provided more than $12.77 million to fund 374 health-related grants in Iowa and South Dakota since 1997, including a total of $1,854,175 to date in 2007. “The Wellmark Foundation works to improve the health of Iowans and South Dakotans,” says Matthew McGarvey, director of The Wellmark Foundation. “Through this specially designed care model, the Siouxland Human Investment Partnership will positively impact many children at the end of life through improved palliative care services and much needed support to their families.”

The Wellmark Foundation is a private, non-profit foundation created by Wellmark, Inc., doing business as Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa. Visit The Wellmark Foundation's Web site at www.wellmark.com/foundation for a list of grant recipients and grant application instructions. Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield and The Wellmark Foundation are independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.