At its November annual conference in Washington, D.C., the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) will recognize several leaders in its 2019 Primary Care Leadership Awards.
Founded in 2006, the PCPCC is a nonprofit, multi-stakeholder membership organization dedicated to advancing an effective and efficient health system built on a strong foundation of primary care and the patient-centered medical home. The PCPCC brings together physician and nursing groups, patient and consumer organizations, health plans, employers, industry, quality organizations, health system
Among the winners of its annual awards is Christopher Koller, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, who has a multi-decade record of promoting and supporting the value of primary care as essential to improving the quality and cost effectiveness of healthcare in the U.S. – including an important focus on population health.
PCPCC said that both as a Rhode Island Health Insurance Commissioner and now as president of Milbank, Koller’s leadership has been crucial in moving forward the goal of the need for a greater investment in primary care throughout the healthcare system (as a component of the total healthcare spend) and how this investment should be consistently measured.
.Featured in the award-winning PBS documentary “The Providers,” Matt Probst, PA-C, Chris Ruge, FNP, and Leslie Hayes, MD, work at El Centro Family Health, a New Mexico Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that offers care to all who walk through the doors, regardless of ability to pay. They serve low-income, predominantly Latino communities, providing patient-focused care for people who are all too often left out of the healthcare system. No matter how many patients they see in a day, how complex their illnesses, or how personally challenging those patients may be, these three providers always interact with patients in a way that recognizes and honors their humanity, PCPCC said.
Another award winner is the Primary Care Development Corporation (PCDC), a national Community Development Financial Institution and a nonprofit organization that provides capacity building and capital investment services to primary care providers, particularly those serving the safety net, to address the spectrum of primary care needs and help achieve health equity. With a mission focused on primary care investment, transformation, and advocacy, PCDC’s impact is shown in the numbers: $1.2 billion leveraged to increase primary care access in low-income communities, 1.8 million square feet transformed into state-of-the-art primary care practices, almost 500 primary care practices supported to achieve PCMH recognition, and over 32.2 million patients impacted nationally since its founding in 1993.
In the last several years, PCDC has expanded service offerings to ensure primary care providers are able to offer high-quality, person-centered, integrated care by introducing and expanding technical assistance and trainings on trauma-informed care, team-based care, SBIRT, and motivational interviewing, in addition to supporting PCMH recognition, revenue cycle management and open access scheduling.
