Nemours opens full-time office for children in Panama City with St. Joe Foundation grant

PANAMA CITY − A local nonprofit organization has helped improve health care options for children in Bay County.

Using a nearly $230,000 grant from the St. Joe Community Foundation, Nemours Children's Health, Pensacola purchased a state-of-the-art echocardiography machine that it used to establish a office in Panama City open five days a week.

Prior to the donation, Nemours Children's Health, Pensacola, which focuses in pediatric specialty care, had an outreach clinic in Panama City that was open only two days a week.

"It allows local people to be able to get access to care without having to travel all the way to Pensacola to get these services," said Dr. Mary Mehta, vice president and chief medical officer for Nemours Children's Health, Pensacola. "We are actually coming to the patient, instead of always making the patient come to us. ... It expands the depth and breadth of care for pediatric care in Panama City and (the surrounding) region."

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Nemours Children's Health, Pensacola also hired a full-time cardiologist to work out of the Panama City office, which is in the same location as the former outreach clinic. It sits in the medical office building attached to Gulf Coast State College.

Mehta said her group used a portable echocardiography machine at the clinic. She believes the new machine and full-time office will be "lifechanging" for local patients.

"We always felt like if we had the best quality machine, we could get more definite images and more detail in our images that we can't really get from the portable machine," she said. "They're good, but not nearly as good as what this state-of-the-art machine can give us.

"That allows us to teach with the families, show them what we're seeing ... and it just brings a whole different level of care locally to the families."

For April Wilkes, executive director of the St. Joe Foundation, helping Nemours perfectly aligned with the nonprofit's mission of improving education, health care, cultural arts and the environment.

The foundation was created in 1999 by the St. Joe Company, a large land-development company headquartered in Panama City Beach that mainly works in Bay and Walton counties. While the St. Joe Foundation is a separate entity than the St. Joe Company, it is funded by transfer fees on certain real estate sales by the St. Joe Company.

"It's great to bring the services that (Nemours) provides in other areas to our local area," Wilkes said. "I can't imagine the stress level that's going to relieve for some parents. Being able to just stay locally, go to the doctor's office, wait for the results and be there and have that answer is just amazing."