The pride of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians is beaming brightly in this holiday season. The Band has shared receipt of two key awards earned by their health services team.
The Pokagon Band announced this morning that their Health Services Department recently received the awards, one of which comes from the Indian Health Service (IHS), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The IHS awarded Pokagon Health Services (PHS) with the 2019 Area Director’s Award, which recognizes exceptional initiative and leadership in carrying out projects to improve the quality of care and the service delivery processes to improve patient experience.
Meanwhile, the Michigan Breastfeeding Network also awarded Pokagon Health Services with a Michigan-Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace GOLD Award for providing a workplace that has breastfeeding-supportive policies and provides time and space for breastfeeding employees in compliance with the Break Time for Nursing Mothers law. The PHS team received the Michigan Breastfeeding Friendly Workplace GOLD Award on October 18th in Dowagiac and the IHS Area Director’s Award on October 24th in Bemidji, Minnesota.
Tribal Chairman Matthew Wesaw says, “We are extremely proud of our Pokagon Health Services team for receiving these two awards,” adding, “Our integrated, patient-centered, medical home model of care serving Native Americans is unparalleled in the region. We also have great pride in the fact that we offer a dedicated private space for breastfeeding to our PHS employees.”
PHS Director, Matt Clay adds, “We are honored to receive this recognition as we continually strive to improve care for our patients, while meeting the needs of our staff. Because we have such an excellent team, we routinely see patients that drive from hundreds of miles away to access our services.”
Pokagon Health Services serves as a primary care provider for the Native American population in Berrien, Allegan, Cass and Van Buren counties in Michigan, and La Porte, St. Joseph, Elkhart, Starke, Marshall and Kosciusko counties in Indiana. Citizens of any Native American Tribe who live in the United States can receive treatment at the Pokagon Medical Clinic. More information can be found online at http://www.pokagon.com/government/departments/healthservices.
The Indian Health Service is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is responsible for providing federal health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives. More information can be found at www.ihs.gov.
MIBFN envisions a world where all Michigan families will live and work in a breastfeeding-friendly environment. To help create such a world, the organization works to lead the statewide collaborative actions for advocacy, education and coalition building to create a supportive breastfeeding culture. More information on MIBFN can be found online at www.www.mibreastfeeding.org.
The photo of Pokagon Health Services accompanying this story on Moody on the Market is courtesy of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians.
