A Message from Richard J. Cohen

In recent issues of Public Health Directions, we have told you about our strategy initiatives and our new organizational structure.

While all of that is critically important, it has meaning only in the context of how we reach out and touch people’s lives. So we are dedicating this issue to our clients and to the people at PHMC and our affiliates who work with them every day. We want you to get to know them, because they truly are special people.

As you read the profiles of our nurses and therapists, some themes will emerge. They speak of the mutual support they feel in the team environments of PHMC’s primary care clinics and behavioral health programs. At one of our programs, CHANCES, that feeling runs so deep that they combined their profiles into one for the whole group.

These wonderful professionals also talk about their devotion to and pride in their work, as well as the challenges and rewards of working with clients who face complex issues. We have profiled several of our primary care clients, as well, and the tremendous appreciation they express for their providers’ care makes it clear why our staff feel so rewarded.

With National Health Center Week falling this month—August 5-11—our cover story gives you a peek into how we are helping to fill the care gap through expansion of our primary care network, where we like to say we go beyond care, providing not only physical health services but also integration with behavioral health, tremendous respect for every client and access to the broader spectrum of services available through the full range of programs provided by PHMC and its affiliates. We build this care on a solid foundation of data, as you’ll see in our Community Health Data Base article. And in a Q&A with Jamie Ware of our affiliate National Nursing Centers Consortium, you’ll learn more about the value of our nurse-managed care model.

Sometimes, we touch lives indirectly, yet still powerfully. Read about our recent Targeted Solutions consulting project that helped Jewish Family and Children’s Services create an online resource center for people with special needs.

As always, we can only scratch the surface here. So we have launched an online tool to help you delve deeper into all that PHMC offers. Take a look at our article about the PHMC Matrix, and try it out. It’s an invitation to get to know PHMC better.

After all, it’s knowing each other—building relationships—that really matters. This is what binds our caregivers and our clients. It’s what brings us together with our partners and funders. It’s what makes you such an important part of what we do. Thank you for supporting us in every opportunity we have to touch a life.

Yours in public health,