Chicago Lighthouse.
Read and see (in a video via the link below) how the CEO of Access Community Health Network, in the Chicago area, is expanding community health.
Access serves the most vulnerable patients in the healthcare system in and around the nation’s third-largest city. They have such complex and long-term diseases as HIV and hepatitis C. And many worry more about food, shelter and safety than their health.
The Chicago Tribune. notes that Access “is federally funded and can’t turn away patients for inability to pay.” The expansion of Medicaid and the launch of subsidized private insurance under the Affordable Care Act have helped Access financially, but the CEO, Donna Thompson, worries about health plans with high deductibles that her patients can’t afford.
Still, the paper reports, “she’s excited about the future because the law has brought a renewed emphasis on primary care and prevention, and away from hospital-based care, in ‘the sweet spot’ of community health centers.”
She told the Tribune: “Many of our patients have not been part of the health system. Many of them have very complex health care needs. How to do a catch-up and get someone back on the path toward health? The other piece is around behavioral health needs. We have social workers at all our health centers. It wasn’t that long ago where I had four or five social workers trying to cover close to 40 health centers.”
She said: “The role of our health care team is expanding beyond the walls of a health center, integrating more and more with the needs of a community. We’re looking at things like food insecurity or housing as part of the formula to move people into optimum wellness. It’s an exciting time to think about the data we have, because of our investment in electronic health records. We’re also in constant communication with our patients because we’ve created an app. Many of our patients live in disenfranchised communities. They’re poor. But they have the same electronic health record that you have at some of the most affluent health systems. As we continue to invest, we become a partner with them to engage in their health care needs.”
