The Primary Care Home: A Health Executive's Perspective
mult_co_hd_3As Multnomah County's director of integrated clinical services, I am responsible for developing and implementing our strategic plan. Our team needed to find the best way to serve our clients, operate efficiently, and allow staff members to practice at their highest level of skill and satisfaction. We found the answer in a model of health care delivery we now call Building Better Care, which is similar to the Primary Care Home.

Working in teams, our staff members leverage their relationships with our clients to provide physical, dental and mental health services in a coordinated way. Teams and patients know and trust one another. That's especially important for our many patients who need behavioral and mental health services. The quality of our integrated primary care has kept patients out of emergency rooms and hospitals.

The team care approach can benefit more than one generation. We've learned that when pregnant women are able to take advantage of our dental services during their first or second trimester, their babies enjoy better health.

The Primary Care Home model is moving our strategic plan from vision to reality.

--Vanetta Abdellatif, Director of Integrated Clinical Services
Multnomah County Health Department