The February 2012 Austin Creative Sector Economic Impact UPDATE noted artists generate “over $4.35 billion in economic activity.” Understanding that economic development provides a slow return on investments, the time to plan a community-wide artist’s health initiative is now. In short, Austin must protect the health and well-being of one of its greatest economic resources – creatives. AHA! will do this by taking preventative health screenings and information on local health programs directly to artists via the community's well-established arts festivals.

One of the largest issues with preventative healthcare services is that they're typically too expensive for the working poor who are uninsured or underinsured (i.e. maintain only a catastrophic plan).  Another issue that adds complexity to the problem is that people who are currently healthy typically don't seek out preventative care -- we tend to seek care only when we are sick and are in dire need of it, even though studies have shown that spending on preventative care can help avoid large healthcare bills down the road.

Too many of Austin's creatives fall into this category of working poor. They can be described as people who do not have access to or do not seek out preventative care. As low-income earners they do not meet the poverty minimum for many programs. In other words, they make too much money to qualify for most charity service providers; yet, they do not have enough income to maintain individual health insurance or even pay-for-service preventative care.

We intend to challenge this issue by bringing preventative healthcare services directly to the artists.  We will do this by taking preventative health screnings and information about local health care programs to the places where artists gather in large numbers -- namely well-established festivals all over Austin, ranging from ACL to FronteraFest.  We will work with organizers of those events to market our services to artists ahead of time and obtain "rosters" of artists who would eligible for our services.

The on-site festival screening area would be staffed by a registered nurse practitioner (RNP), a licensed practical nurse (LPN) and trained volunteers. Under the supervision of the RPN, the LPN would deliver the actual clinical services.  These services would consist of basic vital monitoring, simple blood testing and general triage. If an artist is suffering from a serious ailment, a course of action such as an Urgent Care or doctor's visit would be recommended by the RNP. The trained voluteers would be onsite to work with the artists pre- and post-visit to gather information and help direct artists to other community programs as needed (i.e. specialty care, physician care, subsidized dental care, vision care, etc.).

This initiative would be funded in part by the artists themselves who would be asked to pay what they can.  Community organizations would pick up the remainder of the costs of the program as they seek to increase their visibility and viability in the community and protect the valuable Austin resource that is our creative community.