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December 06, 2022 05:00 AM

Opinion: Best approach to healthcare involves the entire community

Linnea Windel
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    Linnea Windel

    Linnea Windel is president and CEO of VNA Health Care, a 16-site community health center serving suburban Chicago.

    Imagine you arrive in a new country and have a medical need, but you don’t speak the local language and don’t know how or where to find care. In recent weeks, thousands of migrants to the United States have found themselves in precisely that situation, after being transported from the southern border to communities across the country.

    At VNA Health Care, one of the largest community health centers in the country with 16 locations across the Chicago suburbs, we were recently asked to provide care for migrants who arrived in our area. In coordination with the state, the local health department and other stakeholders, our team delivered the most urgently needed care at the hotel where the migrants were staying using our mobile medical van and provided follow-up services at our clinics, with transportation supplied by the local YMCA. This type of grassroots work and collaboration is fundamental to the way CHCs work.

    Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, CHCs, also known as federally qualified health centers, have a central mission to improve access to care and decrease health disparities. Our efforts are always more impactful when we work across the healthcare continuum and engage the entire community. As evidenced by our recent experience treating the new migrants, CHCs, hospitals, health systems, other healthcare entities, community-based organizations and community leaders have extensive experience working together. However, even more collaboration will be needed in order to meet the future needs of an increasingly diverse and aging society.

    Healthcare leaders know the most effective approach to care builds on a foundation of best practices and addresses cultural needs and preferences. In some communities, CHCs and health systems have developed clinical protocols across care settings to take into account customs and lifestyles of the diverse populations they serve. Measuring health disparities baseline information as well as the impact of our initiatives is essential as we strive to address the factors that influence health.

    Healthcare organizations have a tremendous opportunity to work together to identify individuals with needs related to the social determinants of health, which might otherwise be missed—and then to address those needs. Identifying homeless individuals and developing plans of care with the patient, hospitals and primary care providers is one such example. In the future, more work at the community level will be critical. CHCs, other health organizations and local municipality and community leaders in some regions have teamed up to determine and address the root causes of homelessness. These creative, cooperative initiatives have great potential for improving the health for individuals and the community as a whole. Tools such as the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, will help inform future team efforts.

    Quote blue outlineHealthcare leaders know the most effective approach to care builds on a foundation of best practices and addresses cultural needs and preferences.”


    With nearly all states experiencing an increase in the median age of its residents, and the 65-and-older population projected to nearly double in the coming decades, all stakeholders will have to collaborate if we hope to meet the needs of older adults, especially those who have lower incomes. In some areas, CHCs and health systems have developed jointly operated specialty care clinics and established intensive coordination of care to prevent re-hospitalization for patients of all ages with complex needs. Building on those initiatives, healthcare entities, community organizations and leaders will need to develop more affordable housing, social support systems and public transportation to ensure a thriving senior population.

    CHCs, educational institutions and hospitals also have opportunities to teach the next generation of primary care providers who will care for an older, more ethnically and racially diverse population. At VNA Health Care, we provide various primary care clinical experiences for advanced practice nursing students and medical residents. Other opportunities include nurse practitioner residency programs and the HRSA Teaching Health Center grant model to support the training of medical residents in community-based ambulatory care. These efforts will help us continue to build knowledge across the healthcare continuum, leading to greater effectiveness.

    Over the past three years, healthcare providers, government, community organizations and others came together to tackle the numerous difficulties wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this extraordinary time, we connected with our established partners and found new ones, built upon each others’ strengths and worked through many complex problems together. As we face a future with known and unknown challenges, let’s draw upon those experiences and relationships to develop new approaches to partnership for the benefit of all.

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