| Name | Rai'an |
|---|---|
| Last Name | Harris |
| Home Address | 8334 Oak Dr. Chattanooga, TN 37421 United States |
| Organization Name | Skyline Chiropractic |
| Describe Your Role In The Organization | I am the owner and head chiropractor. |
| Organization Address | 1919 Gunbarrel Rd Ste 141 Chattanooga, TN 37421 United States |
| Website | https://www.GoSkyChi.com |
| Best Phone Number To Reach You | 4232819100 |
| Alternate Phone Number | 3149415033 |
| Email Address | drrai@goskychi.com |
| Alternate Email Address | info@goskychi.com |
| Please Describe Your Project In Detail | The main focus of our project is to allow access to Chiropractic care into the homes of families who otherwise would not have known the benefits of, or had access to this service. Chiropractic care has been shown in various studies to affect the body in much more extensive ways than conventional knowledge would indicate. While most people consider it an effective treatment for neck and back pain, studies show that by impacting the nervous system, the effects reach much further than simply the neuromuscular skeletal system. In studies that were cited below, chiropractic care is effective for ailments in the pediatric population such as ear infections, colic, allergies, asthma, and more. In adults especially, it has been shown to decrease blood pressure, insulin resistance, and even improve immune system functionality. All of these ailments disproportionately affect the African-American and Black population. Yet, while studies have shown a holistic, non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical intervention can decrease the rate at which people suffer from these conditions, it is not a commonly known, effective treatment within Black households. In fact, the utilization rate for Chiropractic care in the black community is less than 6%. Studies also show that people under consistent chiropractic care have a better quality of life, take less sick days, and have overall improved performance at their places of employment. With the utilization project, we would like to obtain marketing efforts that will help the community understand the importance of chiropractic care on their quality of life. We also would like to provide a scholarship program, so that families that would not have access to this type of care, whether for insurance or other financial reasons, would be able to receive care for themselves and their family. The difference is that our scholarship would not only fund active care - which is care that is indicated when the person has an active complaint, but to also serve as preventative care. We know that as effectively as consistent chiropractic care treats active complaints, when it comes to the pediatric population, preventative care is much more beneficial. Why would we wait until our kids are struggling with issues (like a traditional care model) when we can take care of the ailments before they rise to problematic levels? Increasing our city’s chiropractic utilization rate will dramatically increase the overall health of our population. It will increase quality of life and decrease sick time. It will make our community more efficient and give our citizens increased functionality to enjoy their leisurely activities that make our city so great and our economy constantly stimulated. This would allow the city of Chattanooga to pioneer a program that would dramatically change the health of a city. The results from case studies done on our population, particularly the underserved population, after 1 year in this program will be promising and show significant changes in the amount of primary care, urgent care, and emergency care visits. After 2 years, we would expect continued changes from year one, but also a notable change in the collective school and work environment due to immunity changes. By year 3, I would expect those changes to trickle from our program qualifying candidates to the rest of the community. Our goal utilization rate is 25% after 3 years. Studies show that after 20% utilization rate for any topic or idea, the rest of the population comes to the same realization in half of the time. This one project will spark years of change, not only within Chattanooga, but within the entire nation as other cities use our case studies to identify what makes our city so successful and such a great place to live. |
| Please explain how your project meets the requirements of the American Rescue Plan | The utilization project meets the requirements of part two of the American Rescue Plan. We would like to address negative economic impacts to general households as well as our small business. When it comes to the City of Chattanooga, this is a time-limited investment and will surely catalyze change in the city as we make Chattanooga one of the healthiest cities in the country, specifically by focusing on underrepresented communities within Chiropractic. |
| Where would your project take place? | Skyline Chiropractic |
| How much will your project cost in total? | 300000 |
| Do you have any matching funding sources from other local governments, private entities, non-profits, or philanthropic entities for your project? | Yes |
| Please describe the source and list amounts of any other funding. | We will be asking for support from Hamilton County as well as support from private businesses. In particular, we plan to use some funds from our own business to further this agenda including, but not limited to funds received from other COVID relief funding efforts. Specific amounts of additional funding have not been provided to us yet. |
| What portion of the project are you asking the city to fund? | We are asking the city to fund the marketing effort as well as the salary for a supporting chiropractor and potentially supporting staff. We are also asking the city to fund a scholarship program to be used as a sliding scale fee to help incorporate chiropractic care into the Black community. |
| If funded, when would your project start? | March 1, 2022 |
| How long would your project take to complete? | The phase of the project is set for a 1 year timeline, but could be largely self sufficient by year 2. |
| What milestones would you use to measure your project’s progress? | The largest metric I would like to use is the utilization rate. I would like to see the Chattanooga utilization rate for chiropractic higher than the national average for African Americans and for humans in general. As utilization increases, we could then use other metrics to measure the health of the community overall and how it compares to those statistics prior to the implementation of the program. Those metrics would include: seeking allopathic care for ear infections, high blood pressure management, diabetes management, and weight management. All metrics we would expect to become lower as utilization rates improve. |
| How would you ensure accountability and transparency throughout the project lifecycle? | We plan to publish many research articles with the information provided by this funding. This will not just help our city, but would also help the nation as others could learn from our case studies, and statistical studies in efforts to improve health in their particular cities. All money disbursed will also be itemized through specific banking accounts and ledgers so that each dollar can be tracked by not only the owner of the company, but by our third party accounting team as well. |
| If successful, how would your project benefit the community? | Currently, the utilization rate for Black Americans and Chiropractic care is dismally low at less than 6%. Being the only Black Chiropractor in the Chattanooga area, I am often told how important it is that people understand how important their nervous system is to the overall function of their body. We often hear during feedback sessions, that if more people knew about what Chiropractic care really does, there may have been serious disease prevented. Many people only find out about what we do when it seems to be too late. While we have success in turning around the health of these people, often they wish they would have known about what we do sooner as they would have had a more productive and happier quality of life. Increasing utilization rates of Chiropractic care affects many different health metrics in the general population. Consistent chiropractic care has been shown in studies to lower blood pressure, lower insulin resistance, and improve the quality of the immune system. All things that affect the African American population disproportionately. By reducing the number of people diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes, we increase the number of viable workers in our community. We also increase overall wellbeing, allowing people to work harder and enjoy more time in leisure, rather than being ill and cooped up in their homes. |
| How will you attract community buy-in for your project? | There is funding allocated to create a marketing campaign. We want the entire city to know the benefits of consistent chiropractic care, and we want them to be able to experience it for their whole family. Our marketing campaign will be focused on helping people understand the implicit benefits of getting adjusted so that they will choose chiropractic as their go-to provider for wellness. This is a campaign that worked extremely well from the perspective of the dental industry. As a point of reference, from 1980-1995, the dental industry increased marketing efforts by 244%. This led the entire industry from informing individuals of the advantages of consistent stringent dental care to informing the population as a whole. When informing larger portions of the community as a whole, cities were shown to have community buy in. Thus, the vast population now understands the importance of brushing teeth twice a day and visiting the dentist to get your teeth cleaned and evaluated. As a society, we take so much care of bones that can easily be replaced. Our goal is to create the same amount of awareness with spinal hygiene. As there is no replacement for your spine and nervous system, it should be taken care of extensively so that the population thrives at optimal vitality. We also plan to offer scholarships for care. This has been a huge passion project for our office for quite some time. No matter who we serve, it is the most heartbreaking moment when a family understands the importance of chiropractic care and spinal hygiene, yet they are unable to afford to get care for their entire family. Often family members must choose the “worst” family member to be seen rather than making sure everyone in the family is functioning efficiently. We would love to see that change starting with Chattanooga. If we are able to offer a scholarship program, utilization rates for Chiropractic would improve across the board. Once the population is able to see the effects from Chiropractic care and how it is impacting their community in such a positive way, they will want to find a chiropractor of their own. This increases utilization rates not just in our city, but ultimately the nation. When our outcome measures begin to make an impact nationwide, we can say that this initiative was started in Chattanooga, TN because we care about the health of our city. |
| Name | Jacob Klaus |
| Contact Information | 314-343-9607 |
| Is there anything else you would like us to know about your project? | As the owner of Skyline Chiropractic, it has been a passion of mine since I was in graduate school to expand the utilization of Chiropractic in underserved communities. Often I hear the phrase “if I just would have known” when I explain to people what I do. Usually this is because of the numerous outcomes that Chiropractic care has had success with. These testimonials however, are not mainstream knowledge, and so people are unaware that they even exist. If the world knew that Chiropractic care was so much more than neck pain and back pain, Chiropractic would really be able to be used at its full potential. Primary Care Physicians would not be inundated with ailments that they are unable to treat, emergency rooms and urgent cares would be less crowded, people would have access to the care they need because they would be able to find the right practitioner and likely be seen much sooner that if they were to wait and see other specialists. Chiropractic care is so underutilized and really has the potential to shift our entire healthcare system on a massive scale. I firmly believe that Chattanooga would be such an innovative city for giving the green light to this project. So many lives would be impacted and we would be on the forefront of changing a healthcare system that is on the verge of collapse. I would love to answer any questions that you may have or to elaborate further on any information. I have attached some of the articles that were used for the claims made and the figures referenced in the questions above. https://www.wfc.org/website/images/wfc/WHO_Submission-Final_Jan2013.pdf https://www.ajmc.com/view/access-to-chiropractic-care-and-the-cost-of-spine-conditions-among-older-adults https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29201346/ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2156587215604784 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3590798/ https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/10755530152755216 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3075649/ https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/special-chiropractic-adjustment-lowers-blood-pressure-among-hypertensive-patients-with-misaligned-c1 https://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20070316/chiropractic-cuts-blood-pressure https://piplancets.com/blogs/pip/chiropractic-and-diabetes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4859445/ https://www.longdom.org/open-access/improved-glycosylated-hemoglobin-hyperglycemia-and-quality-of-life-following-thoracic-hypokyphosis-vertebral-subluxation-correctio-2155-6156-1000807.pdf https://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/features/why-7-deadly-diseases-strike-blacks-most https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/aahealth/index.html "Key Dental Facts." American Dental Association, Survey Center, September 1997. Read more: https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/business-plans/Business-Plans-Volume-08/Dentist.html#ixzz7JHlEiDaw |