You may have heard us speak about how we are “inextricably intertwined” with the community. That’s just a fancy way of saying that Albert Lea Medical Center and the community are tied together in such a way that it’s hard to separate one from the other. After all, we’ve been working together for more than 100 years to improve the quality of life and the quality of health care for people in Albert Lea and surrounding communities. In fact, we consider community benefit — community involvement, community building and community commitment — as one of our critical success factors.

Some of the ways we work together are pretty obvious. Our recent patient services expansion, for example, is a great example of where you not only told us what health care services you needed, but helped us complete the project. Over the past few years, we have increased the number of services we provide at no charge — free sports screenings, health education programs, ambulance event coverage, etc. — now totaling more than $1 million annually. Please look for our 2007 Community Benefit Report in the current Hometown Health issue, with service and program details soon to be published in a special Albert Lea Tribune insert.

I’d like to expand on the community benefit concept by talking about how ALMC contributes to community building by supporting community involvement at all levels of our organization. We encourage staff to participate in community activities by offering each staff member eight hours per year to volunteer in ALMC-endorsed activities. Since 2004, we’ve steadily increased volunteer participation. In 2007, 107 ALMC volunteers contributed 370 hours to local projects and events in these areas:

– Health-related organizations like the Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Red Cross

– Youth programs

– Senior programs

– Human and social services like Salvation Army, local food shelves, United Way

– Our community involvement goal for 2008 is to increase our number of volunteer hours to 624. We promote volunteer opportunities and measure them monthly to make sure we’re on the right track. From the standpoint of community building, we have staff currently serving on the following boards:

– Albert Lea Business Development Center

– Albert Lea Education Foundation

– Albert Lea Family Y

– Albert Lea Port Authority

– The Children’s Center

– Albert Lea Community Theatre

– Albert Lea Convention and Visitors Bureau

– Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce

– Freeborn County Communities Foundation

– Freeborn County Family Services Collaborative

– Freeborn County Walk for Babies (March of Dimes)

– Freeborn County Relay for Life (American Cancer Society)

– Riverland Foundation

– United Way of Freeborn County

– KSMQ

We believe that participation on these boards contributes too many of those quality of life issues as they focus on meaningful employment, quality education, family and leisure activities, and services for people who need a little extra help in challenging times. So we kind of step out of our health care roles to share some of our education and experiences on community boards and to bring back knowledge gained that applies to our organization. That’s how we come together, how ALMC and the community are intertwined as we work toward the greater good.

Working together, anything is possible. As Margaret Mead so aptly put: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Mark R. Ciota, M.D., is CEO of Albert Lea Medical Center. Ciota’s e-mail address is almcceo@mayo.edu.