Broward Health and Memorial Healthcare announced Thursday that they will partner to expand primary care into the Broward County neighborhoods most in need.
The two large health systems will use ZIP code data and heat maps from emergency department visits to their hospitals to target the construction of new primary care locations and determine where five mobile outreach vans will make weekly visits.
Shane Strum, CEO of Broward Health and interim CEO of Memorial Healthcare System, said the North and South Broward Hospital Districts will spend millions to get more preventative care to neighborhoods where it is lacking and work with community partners for funds and outreach to make the effort successful.
“We have many deficiencies or gaps in coverage for maternal care and primary care,” Strum said. “So the real goal would be to put all of that in place in any of the areas that are technically a health desert for health and wellness.”
Melida Akiti, corporate transformation executive with Broward Health, will oversee this new effort, dubbed “Better Together.” It will include measuring whether bringing primary care into targeted communities, regardless of whether residents have health insurance, decreases emergency visits to nearby hospitals. “We will measure everything,” Akiti said. “This is something that we know can work, but we want to make sure that the data tells us it is working.”
Akiti said Broward Health’s recent endeavor to get maternal care into an underserved neighborhood has been successful. The new Maternity Care Center & Heart Community Resource Center in Lauderdale Lakes has exceeded projections in its first year, drawing more than 2,000 patients. Only about 800 patients were expected from the 33311 and 33313 ZIP codes, which were identified as having limited access to crucial maternal health services.
City leaders and community organizations will need to encourage residents to get preventative screenings and seek prenatal care as Broward Health and Memorial Healthcare go into the communities.
“We want to change lives,” Akiti said. “This is not an easy task.”
Akiti said the two hospital systems will work as one to deploy vans where needed, choosing a specific day each week to visit a community. “We are not going to just pass through those areas. We’re going to stay in that community for two years to be able to make changes to health,” she said. “You only can make changes to health if you are consistent and if people trust you. And that is what we want.”
From the vans, residents can access primary care and OB-GYN services.
The plan also is to identify patients who come to the emergency rooms without a primary care doctor and direct them to mobile vans or new primary care clinics in their community. Akiti said she also will leverage community partnerships to address food insecurity, housing and other drivers of better health.
Loreen Chant, CEO of the Health Foundation of South Florida, said her organization plans to support this partnership between the health systems to increase primary care access in Broward County. The foundation already has contributed funds to the Maternity Care Center & Heart Community Resource Center in Lauderdale Lakes
“I love what they said, that if you want a thriving community, healthy community you have to make sure you have primary care,” Chant said Thursday. “We are here for the announcement and we are here as it rolls out.”
The need for primary care is a national concern, as fewer doctors enter the field. Dr. Jennifer Goldman, a family medicine physician with Memorial Healthcare System, sees the growing need in Broward County for primary care services firsthand. She said the health systems will use their physician residents along with telehealth to make this new effort work.
“We know that when you add more primary care physicians to a community, you really do achieve increased life expectancy for that community,” Goldman said. “We know that through national studies and so we’re excited to do that collaboratively together in this county.”
South Florida Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com.
