Program Provides Services to Wounded and Stabbed Patients to Prevent Retaliation and End Cycle of Violence
WHAT: Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, Dr. Shiree A. Berry with HCA Houston Healthcare and Harris County Public Health Executive Director Barbie Robinson will provide an update on the success of the Hospital-linked Violence Interruption Program. Also, there will be a personal success story of a program participant. The program, started last year, is designed to help reduce gun violence in at-risk communities in Harris County. It’s a hospital-based intervention and prevention model that meets patients at the bedside who have been shot, stabbed, or brutally assaulted. Outreach specialists detect and interrupt cycles of violence and retaliation and connect impacted survivors to resources and services. The county also has a community-based violence interruption program that started in 2021. Between the two violence interruption programs, outreach specialists have stopped at least 26 shootings and likely prevented other cases. The 26 lives saved means a saving of $7.1 million for taxpayers, who pay $274,000 for each gun violence death. The hospital-based program started at HCA Houston Healthcare Northwest and was expanded this year to Ben Taub Hospital.
WHEN: Monday, Nov. 20, 9:30 a.m.
WHO: Commissioner Rodney Ellis
Dr. Shiree A. Berry, MD, FACS, Regional Trauma Medical Director at Extant Healthcare, HCA Houston Healthcare
Barbie Robinson, Executive Director, HCPH
WHERE: HCA Houston Healthcare Northwest, South Entrance Atrium | 710 Cypress Creek Parkway, Houston, TX 77090