AnnualReport2020

countries, including Panama, the Dominican Republic and Honduras. Our primary locations also hold outreach clinics within their catchment areas. In 2019, 232 outreach clinics were held in the U.S., helping to care for children closer to their homes. We are committed to doing all that we can to reach the children who need our services, wherever they may live – in a reasonable, efficient and coordinated manner. In addition to streamlining and strengthening our clinics and our telehealth programs, we are hoping to take advantage of the technology in our orthotics and prosthetics programs. Many of the international patients seen in the clinics who currently need to come to the U.S. for treatment need orthotic or prosthetic devices. If we provided some of that technology to international physicians, and the accompanying training, it is feasible to believe that some of the needed devices could be created in our facilities and shipped to their local physicians, eliminating the need for the patient to travel to the U.S. Strategic Research We are very proud of our amazing researchers and scientists. While we certainly want to make new discoveries and learn new things, we are strongly committed to conducting research that has a clear potential to one day benefit our patients. We also want our research efforts to be collaborative and seen as a system-wide effort. With a renewed emphasis on clinical research, we are making great progress in these areas. This past year, we opened the Shriners Hospitals for Children Genomics Institute in Tampa, Florida. The work of the Institute will bring us closer to discovering the genetic

In addition, we are working with the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop devices to assist patients with limb movement and function. Combining our medical knowledge with Georgia Tech’s expertise in biomedical engineering will eventually provide our patients, including those with cervical- level spinal cord injuries, with new ways to overcome specific physical limitations. We can learn from anything, even the most difficult of circumstances. Faced with the restrictions caused by the pandemic, we still needed to be in touch with patients – especially those scheduled for follow-up visits. I’m very proud of everyone who pulled together and quickly made Fast Track Video Visits, a form of telehealth that allows physicians and caregivers the opportunity to see and treat patients via mobile devices in their home, available. This has proven to be an effective, even popular, solution. By the end of the first week in May, combined numbers for patients seen and appointments scheduled was more than 2,000. We will continue this program for as long as needed, and take the lessons learned to improve our long-term approach to telehealth. Hope IsWhoWe Are Shriners Hospitals for Children are places of hope. Every day, in our locations across three countries, we help our patients discover the power of hope. Then, we step back and watch as they overcome incredible physical challenges with grace, confidence and strength. Our research efforts are infused with the hope of a better answer, and a better tomorrow. And, we blanket the world with hope, through our outreach and medical education efforts. The people of Shriners Hospitals for Children are people of hope. With hope, anything Patient-centered Telehealth

is possible, and the most difficult situations can be managed and changed. I have every hope that this deadly coronavirus will be beaten, and we will all emerge, weary, but stronger. And we will continue to do all we can to ensure that Shriners Hospitals for Children will continue to share hope with the world’s children and families for a second hundred years. Yours in the faith, Jerry G. Gantt

Chairman, Board of Trustees Shriners Hospitals for Children

causes of conditions we treat and allow us to one day create targeted therapies for each individual patient’s needs.

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