When Juanita Melero was expecting her three daughters — now 12, 13 and 16 — she didn’t have a family doctor or trusted gynecologist to tend to her during or after the pregnancies.
But on Sept. 30, Melero delivered her son, Errnan Jr., in Holy Cross Hospital’s birthing center, which recently reopened in the Chicago Lawn community area through a partnership with Access Community Health Network.
The partnership allowed Melero to receive prenatal attention and aftercare for her baby. She also has found a primary care doctor for rest of her family.
She said she finally feels she has found a medical home.
“I never really felt a connection with any other doctor,” said Melero, 40, who, before learning about the Access clinic 20 weeks into her pregnancy, was being seen by a nurse practitioner at a nearby clinic. “I didn’t feel that bond or connection. They were just doing their job and getting us out as soon as they could. I never felt they took the time to really listen.”
Many people like Melero who live in low-income areas and lack other health care options often rely on emergency rooms or walk-in clinics for everything from minor illnesses to deliveries to major medical crises. Experts say that not only robs people of needed preventive care and early intervention but takes an expensive toll on health systems.
Some Chicago-area hospitals are attempting to address that by partnering with federally qualified community health centers such as Chicago-based Access.
Since Access began providing primary and OB-GYN care at Holy Cross, 2701 W. 68th St., in February — allowing the hospital to reopen its Family Birthing Center — officials say the health center has been seeing about 50 patients daily, from infants to the elderly, and last month delivered 40 babies. Though Melero has insurance through her job as a preschool teacher, many Access patients are on Medicaid or uninsured.
Access, which a network official said provides care at nearly 60 Chicago-area health centers, is one of many federally qualified health centers across the country that provide preventive and primary care to communities that have historically been underserved. Access officials say their new hospital partnerships — another, at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, helped the medical center retain its residency program — are part of a new model for providing primary care to those who couldn’t get it before.
Before Access partnered with Holy Cross, there was no “identifiable primary-care system in this neighborhood,” said Wayne Lerner, president and CEO of the 130-bed hospital, which serves 450,000 people in six ZIP codes. “The need that exists in this community is overwhelming. … We are the only hospital in a 4-mile radius.”
In 2009, the financial losses resulting from unnecessary emergency room visits and unpaid medical bills became so severe that Holy Cross suspended its labor and delivery department for six months.
“It was a bad situation financially,” Lerner said. “We had to stop the hemorrhaging.”
It was also a bad situation for the expectant mothers. Access CEO Donna Thompson said a Holy Cross nurse told her that about 60 percent of patients would show up to the ER to deliver without having ever seen an obstetrician during their pregnancies.
After the labor and delivery department was suspended at Holy Cross, many of these women would be stabilized and sent to other hospitals. The ones who did deliver in Holy Cross’ ER got no follow-up plan or checkup.
“What if there is substance abuse, behavioral heath issues or abuse in the home? What if the baby gets sick and no one taught you what to look for, as far as jaundice, or how to breast feed?” Thompson said.
Hospital officials sought out Access and formed a partnership to provide the primary family care in a more cost-effective way.
Thompson said Access, which is funded by both government and private assistance, has a roster of qualified physicians who speak a total of 35 different languages.
“In today’s economy with jobs with no benefits, it’s great to have a community health center anchored in the area where we can offer health care access,” she said. “We reach those that are many times invisible to our society. For many, they don’t have a voice, and I hope we give them a voice.”
Access’ partnership with Evanston’s Saint Francis Hospital began in July, with the opening of a community wellness center that offers full-service health care on sliding-scale rates. The clinic also broadens opportunities for medical students in the St. Francis residency program.
The new site, at 7465 N. Clark St., offers obstetrics, internal medicine, family practice and pediatrics to residents of Evanston and Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood.
Sandra Bruce, president and CEO of Resurrection Health Care, which owns and operates St. Francis, said residents training in a federally qualified, team-based health care center will make for better private practice doctors.
“They have more appreciation for the needs of low-income individuals,” Bruce said. “They learn how to deliver health care as a team … with social workers, nutritionists and dentists. It benefits all of us in the community.
“It is really an exciting thing that we are doing,” Bruce added. “In addition to helping people who get their care there, we are creating the primary professional of the future.”
