10 Years of Integrated Care

Back row: Ron Haynes, therapist; Andres Mondragon, clinical supervisor; Nikki Lowman, Children’s Advocacy Center therapist; Janet Cecil, therapist; Wanda King, dual diagnosis case manager; Kim Martin, client health navigator; Christina Bryant, ICP nurse; Harry Suggs, IDT therapist. Front row: Ebony Gilmore, intern; Tonya Bunch, therapist; Natalia Wasserberg, therapist; Anita Jones, therapist. On Zoom: Dr. Jason Jones, medical director at High Point Center for Child Wellness.

Family Service of the Piedmont’s Integrated Care Program (ICP) is celebrating its 10th anniversary. This program was established to provide uninsured individuals in the Triad with comprehensive health care, from traditional primary care to psychiatry and referrals to other community programs. The ICP is housed at the Families First Center in downtown Greensboro.

Kim Martin, the program’s client health navigator, has been part of ICP since its inception. Below, she shares some of her thoughts on how it has evolved.

Technology-wise we have come leaps and bounds! We went from handwritten paper client file charts and prescriptions to a fully integrated, team accessible EHR with all the fancy colorful icons and a speedy electronic script system. We have laptops in order to provide a super safe telehealth doctor visit that also ensures that we can continue to care for and see our clients virtually when they cannot come in or do not feel safe to do so.

Three years after opening the Families First Center Integrated Care Program clinic in 2012, both the Slane Center and Interactive Resource Center opened ICP medical clinics as well to give even more access to the uninsured individuals!

“We continue to provide our clients with access to a caring and high quality, no-cost medical clinic and access to medications, lab work and personal hygiene products.”

Pictured, from left to right: Christina Bryant, Kim Martin and Dr. Anthony Steele, ICP nurse practitioner.

But then I thought about what has not changed.

What has not changed is the heart, or the work that the team does to support this program. When our very missed former director Theresa Johnson started the program, she insisted that we needed to burst through every barrier and bust down every closed door that was put up for our clients who were all uninsured. These clients mostly resided in the impoverished communities with chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity and poor dental care.

Thanks to her and FSP leadership we continue to provide our clients with access to a caring and high quality, no-cost medical clinic and access to medications, lab work and personal hygiene products. We link them with community resources for cancer screenings and address the social determinants of health. Not just so they could have the basic needs to survive, but so that they could thrive! The medical team works with clients therapists as a true integrated team and treats this individual mind, body and spirit.

Join us as we celebrate 10 years of serving the uninsured humans that we walk side by side with in this life and continue to give them the quality, caring medical services they simply deserve.