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Premium Care at Economy Prices Through Teamwork
How does a community clinic provide top quality care with limited resources? The answer is through a well thought out teamwork approach in sync with the needs of the community it serves. La Clinica’s diabetes collaborative is one of the best examples of this approach. Diabetes is a major problem affecting the Latino and African-American communities La Clinica serves. These populations are affected by a genetic predisposition which is further stressed by improper diet. Diabetes can lead to blindness and foot infection. If not properly treated the foot infections turn to gangrene and diabetics often lose their feet. To meet the challenge, the clinic set up a collaborative including nutritionists, eye doctors, dentists, and podiatrists. As a result La Clinica has reduced the incidents and complications of diabetes in their patient population and have been recognized for having one of the best diabetic treatment programs in the state. Physician’s assistant Michael Terry describes the aggressive approach the clinic takes, and its rewards: “With every patient we get an update of which lab tests they have had and which lab tests are due. Periodically we get a statistical review of all of our diabetes patients. How many of them have met their goal in terms of their glycemic control. How many of them have gone to the nutritionist, how many of them have gone to see the eye doctor, and the dentist. Then we can work on why didn’t this person do what they were supposed to do. Care for diabetes has become a really high priority for us. As a result of this intensive program, we brought down the morbidity and the mortality rate from diabetes among our patients. Our patients are not losing their feet. They are not having heart attacks as frequently as diabetics in other areas, and they are not losing their eyesight. In the end this saves a lot of money. People don’t end up in the emergency room. It’s an example of how primary care is much cheaper, and keeps a population much healthier than tertiary care, where you are following up after people are already diseased.” According to La Clinica administrator Jane Garcia, the programs hardest hit will be the specialty services such as optometry, dental, podiatry, and chiropractic. These “optional services” are not covered under federal funding but are funded 100% by the state, making them the most vulnerable.
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