Access to Health Services, including Dental Health

Continue to collaborate with other organizations addressing violence, particularly in Wilmington, to ensure cohesion and opportunities to strengthen impact. Measures Number of patients enrolled and graduated; percentage of patient centered goals met.

Access to Health Services, including Dental Health

ChristianaCare is committed to radically simplifying access for patients. Over the next several years, ChristianaCare will work toward this commitment by creating and expanding digital solutions to support access, and by developing highly coordinated and integrated team-based care across our clinical settings. ChristianaCare also recognizes that access to care in the community remains vital. Not all our neighbors will be able to, or receptive to, receiving their care online or by telephone. Continuing to provide a variety of care options in and for the community will remain a priority. We will continue to seek opportunities to place providers and staff in community settings to be able to provide the right care, at the right time, at the right place. One such innovation is our Mobile Health Services, which launched in June 2022. With the generous support of Barclay’s, ChristianaCare purchased and outfitted two vans to be able to provide adult and pediatric health screenings, primary care, sports physicals, vaccinations, and social determinants of health screenings. ChristianaCare will work with community organizations and stakeholders to determine where the vans would be of most service to our community and to establish a standard operating model. We expect to use these vans to provide health services to individuals who otherwise may not have received these critical services and care. Over the next three years, ChristianaCare will also add needed services within School Based Health Centers (SBHCs). Services will include lead testing at the three ChristianaCare operated elementary SBHCs as well as dental screenings and expanded behavioral health services. The twenty-three SBHCs ChristianaCare operates in elementary, middle, and high schools are essential access points for students and must provide services that are responsive to the substantial needs of the community. In January 2021, ChristianaCare completed a significant renovation project that made possible a dramatic increase in the clinical capacity of our Dentistry and Oral Maxillofacial Surgery Practices. In fiscal year 2022, there was a record high of 14,272 patient visits. For more than sixty years, ChristianaCare has offered a dental clinic in the Wilmington Hospital Health Center that has fees at a reduced level so that uninsured and underinsured patients can receive comprehensive care. The faculty and residents who provide care at ChristianaCare’s dental clinic also rotate to

affiliated dental clinics at Nemours SeniorCare, Westside Family Healthcare, Henrietta Johnson Medical Center, and the Dental Health Center at Delaware Technical & Community College. ChristianaCare’s dental clinic and dental practice at Wilmington Hospital is an essential access point for high quality affordable dental care in our community, as well as a training ground to support improved dental care access for all communities we serve.

ChristianaCare’s Health Guides team will continue to aid patients in removing barriers to accessing both primary care and dental care with a focus on financial barriers. Health Guides function as collaborative, interdependent members of the primary care practices and advocates of their community seeking to support uninsured, underinsured, and underrepresented Delawareans in all aspects of health and health care. Serving as the “bridge” between the community and health care providers, Health Guides assist the substantial population of patients who face financial barriers to care, helping them access available and appropriate health care services; connecting them to health insurance and financial assistance opportunities; connecting them to community programs and resources outside the health system; and providing health and wellness information with a focus on prevention. The Health Guides also connect patients to the Medical Legal Partnership, a collaboration with the Delaware Community Legal Aid Society, Inc., which assists with the mitigation of civil legal hardships. Often, these issues impede patients from being able to focus on their healthcare. By removing this barrier, patients can reprioritize their health. In fiscal year 2022, ChristianaCare expanded the Health Guide program by hiring two new bilingual Health Guides to serve two ChristianaCare primary care practices, ChristianaCare’s Su Centro de Salud, with Primary Care at Kirkwood and MAP 2. ChristianaCare is also expanding its capacity to serve the community in the community through its commitment to a Community Health Workers (CHWs) program, a key component of an effective population health strategy. CHWs are embedded within multiple ChristianaCare locations: Women’s Health, School-Based Health Centers, Primary Care, the Wilmington Hospital Emergency Department, and Behavioral Health, including both outpatient Behavioral Health and Project Recovery, a substance use disorder program. In the interest of ensuring that patients and community members are served with excellence by the CHWs, ChristianaCare has adopted the IMPaCT Model of the Penn Center for Community Health Workers. ChristianaCare worked within the IMPaCT Model to develop protocols for several key areas: recruiting and hiring, training and certification, standardized CHW care, supervision and integration, and high-quality research and evidence. This attention to standardization, integration within healthcare, and evidence-based strategies will ensure that our CHWs are