Congressionally Directed Spending for Construction Projects - For more than 160 years Eskenazi Health in Indianapolis has been committed to the health and wellness of Marion County and Central Indiana. This dedication extends beyond physical health, expanding into mental, spiritual, and the economic health of our community. From the beginning, nutrition has played an important role in our approach to caring for our community and keeping patients healthy. Eskenazi Health is known for high quality food service with a strong focus on nutrition, local procurement, and culinary innovation that has been recognized with multiple national awards. We have a unique opportunity to greatly enhance the impact of our food as medicine programs to reach more neighbors in need of medically tailored meals while also establishing a workforce training center to improve the economic mobility of neighbors in need of jobs. This is exciting because we need only a one-time capital investment to launch the program, having developed a formal business plan to demonstrate the sustainability of the program after an initial capital investment. Leveraging the experience and talent of our food and nutrition team, Eskenazi Health developed medically tailored meals in 2015. The medically tailored meal program is an innovative approach to treating and preventing chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and other conditions that disproportionately impact underserved neighborhoods. In collaboration with our award-winning culinary team and the experienced dietitians and nutritionists at Eskenazi Health, each meal is specifically designed to meet the dietary requirement of a food prescription provided by a physician or a nutritionist. These meals are prepared primarily utilizing food grown in Indiana. Currently Eskenazi Health produces nearly 10,000 medically tailored meals per week, and requests for meals keeps increasing. To meet this demand, Eskenazi Health needs to expand the operation beyond our hospital kitchen into a dedicated USDA inspected facility. Moving production of the medically tailored meal program to a USDA inspected facility will allow Eskenazi Health to immediately triple production to meet the growing demand. This move offers the program financial sustainability through economies of scale while supporting Indiana farmers, businesses, and manufacturers. However, we see the opportunity to collaborate with our partners in the community to take this innovative program even further with the addition of a workforce development center focused on careers in food and nutrition. This center will support the community and Marion County with training made available to underserved communities and generate jobs while also reducing hunger and improving nutrition.
