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Supporting a UVA Health strategic plan goal of cultivating healthy communities and belonging for all — UVA Health is lauding Carter Myers Automotive (CMA)'s donation of a sport utility vehicle (SUV) that will take better health on the road.

At an Oct. 3 event outside the Battle Building in Charlottesville — UVA Health leaders and team members, and Carter Myers representatives, unveiled a UVA Health-branded Ford Explorer that, as a Community Paramedicine SUV, will connect more UVA Health patients to critical medical services.

In a local TV news interview, UVA Health CEO and UVA EVP for Health Affairs Mitchell Rosner, MD, MACP, FRCP (pictured on left), explains: “Having a four-wheel drive vehicle like this is really critical — really allows us to do some things we’ve always wanted to do. The more that we’re able to keep patients getting the care at their home, or outside of the emergency room, that frees up resources here. We can now come to them!”

Novella W. Thompson, MBA, MA, ALM-C, FACHE, Administrator, UVA Health Population Health Department (pictured on right), tells local media that from downtown Charlottesville to Skyline Drive, patients can be treated for a range of non-life threatening conditions. “They are predominately in the homes managing chronic care management — especially for new diagnoses like diabetes, chronic heart failure."

Thompson explains that location should not be a barrier to good health and that the SUV is a second vehicle for a program that has been in place for three years.

"Transportation sort of barriers are huge for people in our surrounding counties,” Taylor Tereskerz, EMT-I, Community Paramedicine Specialist, (pictured in left photo, far left) tells reporters. “To be able to go to them, it makes them more inclined to make their visits.”

“We hope that any time a vehicle or car is part of a solution for our community — that we are the first call,” says Carter Myers Automotive President Liza Borches (pictured on right).

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