|
A patient representative at the Marilyn K. Freeland R.N., Family Health Center welcomes and schedules patients in their preferred language, English or Spanish. Effective communication is an agency priority in the effort to remove disparities in the way people are treated and CCI offers in-service training regularly so the staff can maintain good skills. The Freeland Family Center is also the hub of the 340B federal pharmacy partnership with the Langley Park Pharmacy (pictured here next to CCI). Plans to involve other local pharmacies are underway for future partnerships. Message from the Executive Director Message from the Medical Director Performance Improvement Committee Report
|
Message from the Medical Director I am a new arrival to Montgomery County and Maryland.
In familiarizing myself with community resources, I draw the following
conclusions: 1.) The community is progressive and committed to caring
for the underserved and uninsured; 2.) The funding necessary to
accomplish the central mission of CCI is only available through
a patchwork of agencies and programs; and, 3.) Our providers and
staff are remarkably dedicated and passionate about the The health of a community, by definition, takes into account both the wealthy and the poor. Montgomery is a wealthy and healthy county, but there are pockets where this statement does not hold true. Poverty and poor health are intimately related, and barriers to healthcare access only serve to heighten the disparities. Wealthy areas are understandably a magnetic draw for individuals from other countries. Our county is home to many immigrants, mostly from Latin America, but also from West Africa, Ethiopia and parts of Asia. If a primary care health facility is to have an impact on the health of the community, it must focus on the challenges of those in most need, where improved access can make a difference to ultimate health status. How are we approaching this? First, we ensure access to affordable care by
providing healthcare at a reasonable cost. We make every effort
to get patients what they really need, without running up their
bills. Our new discount pharmacy program brings expensive treatments
into the range of most working uninsured patients. For specialty
care, resources such as Project Access and Catholic Charities continue
to work with us. Fostering closer ties with local university health
and hospital systems means better access to care for Next, we are recognized as a provider of quality. JCAHO certification, our credentials verification and a review of our doctors’ credentials and experience shows me that CCI has no cause for concern about the quality of our care. In fact, we raise the bar ever higher to make sure we have only the best doctors performing well and satisfied with their work. Thus, we ensure a stable medical staff. Our third effort is enhanced performance improvement. PI ensures that standards are uniformly high for all our patients, irrespective of insurance or ability to pay. We aim to perform better, measured by any scale, on those performance measures that have the greatest impact on health. This is how we work to reduce healthcare disparities, improve the health of the underserved and bring the health status of our whole community to a level we all expect to achieve. Just wait until we get an electronic health record! |
