Improving Access to Care and Health Outcomes
In keeping with Nassau Healthcare Corporation's vision for improving access to health care, reducing health care disparities, and offering culturally sensitive, community-connected health care services, the Department of Ambulatory Care and Community Medicine was established in March 2008.
Ambulatory health services are provided through a system community-based primary care practices and eighty-one hospital-based specialty care services allowing access to medical care to patients ranging in age from infancy to geriatrics. The three primary care areas include Medicine, Obstetrics/Gynecology, and Pediatrics. We provide primary and secondary preventive services including clinical evaluation, patient education, testing and treatment in Obstetrics/Gynecology, Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD), Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Family Planning, Dental, Tuberculosis, HIV, Young Adult Services (Obstetrics, Family Planning, and Medicine), Mammography, Podiatry, Nutrition, Radiology, and Laboratory services. Immunization and lead screening programs and services are available to age-appropriate patient populations. There are two Prenatal Care Assistance Programs (PCAP) : one at Family Health Centers and a second at the hospital-based Women's Center. Family Planning and Cancer Screening grants (which includes a mobile mammography health center) provide reproductive health and breast, colorectal and cervical cancer screening services to uninsured and underinsured men and women. The 81 specialty services encompass a full spectrum of medical, pediatric, and surgical specialty services.
A number of important initiatives were undertaken in 2008 that serve to both improve the experience of care as well as to expand the ambulatory services provided. This includes additional healthcare provider staff and improved doctor-patient continuity, the initial implementation of an electronic health record in the outpatient setting and the beginnings of specialty service consultations availability out in the communities we serve.
Goals for 2009
- Pursuing designation as a Federally Qualified Health Center
- Ongoing implementation of an electronic health record
- Expanding dental services
- Establishing select specialty sessions in the community based on patient needs
- Broadening our ambulatory practice network to include encompass a wide variety of practice settings and services
Through these efforts, the Department of Ambulatory Care and Community Medicine strives to continue to provide high quality, personalized, culturally sensitive, evidence-based care to everyone consistent with the Nassau Health Care Corporation's mission, vision, goals and the needs and expectations of its patients.