July, 2015: It was announced that Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center (VGMHC), Pacific University, and Tuality Hospital will be working together to initiate and maintain a new transitions of care model. Officially titled as the “Primary Care Training Enhancement – Community-Based Care Transitions (PCTE-CBCT) project,” it expands the before mentioned partnerships into a multidisciplinary training which focuses on the transition of patients between inpatient and outpatient care. Specifically, an interdisciplinary team will round on VGMHC patients while admitted to Tuality Hospital. This same team will continue to see recently discharged patients from any hospital at a specialized transitions of care clinic housed in the Hillsboro VGMHC.
The goal of this innovative training program is not only to improve care for underserved patients by decreasing hospital readmissions, medical errors, and the rate of unmet behavioral health and social needs, but to “provide a model for other community health centers and educational institutions seeking to enhance the primary care workforce in underserved communities.”
Financing is supplied by a hefty 5-year HRSA grant which includes funding for a physician assistant (associated with the School of PA Studies at Pacific University) as part of the medical team. “There is nothing out there like this”, states Lydia Jackson, co-faculty with the School. Dr. Mary Von, Director of the School, continues, “It’s a great opportunity for collaboration with our community partners. We look forward to working together to improve transitional care for some of our most vulnerable patients.”