For 150 years, Wishard’s impact on the Indianapolis community has been unmistakable and indelible.

The hospital for all of Indianapolis is more than a center for health care, education and research. It will continue as Eskenazi Health in 2014.

Wishard's Hispanic health services program is a model for others around the country.

Wishard's women and children’s health initiatives helped reduce the city’s infant mortality rate by 31.6 percent from 1990-2000.

Wishard was the first of Indianapolis’s hospitals to provide care African-American patients, the first to admit African-American physicians and graduated its first class of African-American nurses in 1943.

Wishard also started a model Hispanic health services program in 1995 and began providing care for Central Indiana’s growing Hispanic population long before it reached the current zenith.

Its trauma team counsels victims of violence on how to remove themselves from conflict, while women’s health includes domestic violence and motherhood education initiatives.

Wishard’s impact on the community is far-reaching and profound.

A success story

In 1990, Indianapolis had the highest African-American infant mortality rate in the United States. Wishard and Health and Hospital Corporation initiated nursing outreach to work with pregnant women, providing access to prenatal care, nutrition information, smoking cessation support and information about the risks of alcohol consumption during pregnancy. As a result, in 10 short years, the troubling mortality rate declined by 31.6 percent, reducing costs as well as improving outcomes for our community.