Since its inception 40 years ago, Hope Clinic, an intentional faith-based community organization, has viewed people as whole persons attempting to flourish within a challenging community environment. In commitment to its mission to partner with “YOU/ the community,” and to address the myriad of needs within a very diverse setting, Hope Clinic has worked to integrate its services (including primary care, dentistry, food services…) through innovation, change of culture and organizational processes. The work and encouragement of CFHA, and the efforts of those it represents in championing integrated care has served as an encouragement and fueled in part the move in building stronger interprofessional collaboration within the organization and with the greater community. It has been suggested that the main reasons to engage integration is to grow an organization’s capacity to comprehensively address the broad range of whole-person health needs through linkages across the community (see Robinson et al., 2021); Bitton et al., 2018). Implementing integrated, community oriented primary care that addresses social determinants of health may also achieve health equity that in fact meets a communities’ needs (Satcher & Rachel, 2017). Hope Clinic has been able to utilize the foundational concepts of integrated care in carrying out its missional aligned, team-based care through unique partnerships with churches, nationally recognized academic institutions, hospital systems, a large cadre of volunteers, and clients themselves. Attendees who are working to foster community focused, “whole person” care built upon community partnerships will learn and be challenged to consider how to approach organizational change, find innovation in integrating a large cross section of services, to provide integrated care with largely volunteers who are very diverse, and to work from an intentional faith perspective. The organizational and client outcomes, challenges, and strategies taught will parallel the Comprehensive Theory of Integration model (Singer et al., 2020) that identifies five levels of concern in working toward integration. The presentation will include active participation in considering one’s own steps and approaches for organizational change.
Martha Kershaw, Medical Director, Hope Clinic Martha Kershaw MD
Julie Payne, Behavioral Health Manager, Hope Clinic Julie Payne LMSW
Thomas Bishop, Associate Professor, University of Tennessee Health Sciences; Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Michigan, Hope Medical Clinic Thomas Bishop PsyD