Advertisement
A team of AMERIGROUP associates, including medical professionals andothers trained in logistical support services, departed Virginia Beach earlyMonday and has begun working with local contacts to address the basic needs ofpeople driven out of their residences by Hurricane Ike. The Disaster ResponseTeam is focusing particular attention on people with special medical needswhose lives have been seriously disrupted by the storm.
Advertisement
AMERIGROUP's Disaster Response Team was established as a joint initiativeof the Company and its charitable arm, the AMERIGROUP Foundation, earlier thisyear. It was activated for the first time within the past month and hasalready assisted victims of three major storms that struck the southern UnitedStates. Along with the unit currently responding to Hurricane Ike, AMERIGROUPpreviously dispatched one unit to assist evacuees from Hurricane Gustav whowere housed in shelters in Memphis, Tennessee, and another to support disasterpreparedness efforts in Savannah, Georgia, prior to the arrival of TropicalStorm Hanna.
"What began as a call to service by our CEO, Jim Carlson, has grown into ameaningful way for us to demonstrate our commitment to our neighbors and toutilize our expertise to help communities in need," said John E. Littel,AMERIGROUP Foundation Chairman. "While this is a modest start for us, we arehopeful that our efforts will lead to a potentially replicable model for theprivate sector to supplement disaster relief services for a population thatdesperately needs attention."
AMERIGROUP Corporation is a healthcare organization that serves about 1.7million people enrolled in publicly funded programs such as Medicare andMedicaid nationwide. The Company employs about 800 doctors, nurses and socialworkers who reach out to members and offer healthcare programs that help themlead healthier lives.
AMERIGROUP's Disaster Response Team is designed to mobilize and deliverthe expertise of its volunteers to victims of natural disasters and otheremergencies, when the need for assistance is extreme. More than 100AMERIGROUP employees volunteered for the team and completed disasterpreparedness training earlier this year. After consulting with nationaldisability advocates and AMERIGROUP's National Advisory Board on ImprovingHealthcare Services for Seniors and People with Disabilities, the team focusedon disaster response services for people with special needs, a traditionallyunderserved population.
The Disaster Response Team unit currently deployed in Houston will assistin working with those who have been forced into temporary shelters by thestorm. In addition, the team is supplementing the Company's Houston healthplan in conducting outreach to its most vulnerable members. AMERIGROUP hasextensive healthcare operations in Texas, serving about 458,000 people who areenrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance programs.
For more details and stories from the inaugural deployment of AMERIGROUP'sDisaster Response Team, visithttp://www.amerigroupcorp.com/news/Pages/MediaKit.aspx.
About AMERIGROUP Corporation
AMERIGROUP Corporation, headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia,improves healthcare access and quality for the financially vulnerable, seniorsand people with disabilities by developing innovative managed health servicesfor the public sector. Through its subsidiaries, AMERIGROUP Corporationserves approximately 1.7 million people in Florida, Georgia, Maryland, NewJersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas andVirginia. For more information, visit http://www.amerigroupcorp.com.
