Marydale DeBor is a featured expert in “Treating Hunger As a Health Issue,” a US News & World Report article that examines the role of hospitals in helping patients manage their health outcomes by alleviating food insecurity. Marydale works with hospitals to develop community benefit programs that promote healthy eating, reduce food insecurity, and improve population health. Provisions in the Affordable Care Act now offer financial incentives to encourage hospitals to focus on preventive care and decrease readmission rates. Although this is new and challenging territory for most hospitals, using proven hospital-based programs such as Plow to Plate, which Marydale helped design and build, can help hospitals achieve their health care objectives while maintaining their non-profit status.

Read the full US News & World Report article

From US News and World Report, “Treating Hunger As a Health Issue,” February 13, 2014

“The Affordable Care Act provides several opportunities for hospitals to pursue initiatives to address the interrelated issues of hunger, malnutrition and obesity,” says Marydale DeBor, founder and director of Fresh Advantage, a Connecticut-based consultancy helping organizations support healthy food.

“Another major opportunity to address food insecurity,” notes DeBor, a former hospital executive, “is Section 9007 of the [Affordable Care Act], which creates a greatly strengthened requirement for non-profit hospital to provide ‘community benefit’ programs in order to justify their tax-exempt-status.”