Campaign promotes use of 'medical home'

Across the country, people show up in hospital emergency rooms because they’re sick and they don’t know where else to go.

“They might have a cold or the flu, and they just want to see a doctor,” said Brian Zachariah, medical director of the emergency department at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

A campaign that begins this week will try to change that. Posters, brochures and other promotional materials will begin showing up in work places, convenience stores, clinics and other locations across Galveston County.

The slogan is simple: “Your health. Your options.” The goal is to educate people about the importance of finding what folks in the medical field call a medical home.

What that is, basically, is the old-fashioned family doctor.

“Your medical home,” the campaign brochure says, “is where your personal health-care provider knows you and your specific situation or condition. They know your medical history and are best prepared to provide care that addresses your long-term needs and goals.”

The program will refer patients with insurance or the financial resources to pay for their own care to private physicians. Those without insurance and financial resources it will refer to places such as the 4Cs Medical Clinics in Galveston and Texas City.

The Galveston County Health District operates those clinics. Mark Guidry is the chief executive officer, and he said the clinics were prepared to handle the new patients coming their way.

“We’ve been doing things to get ready for this,” he said. He had no prediction of how many new patients the promotion might generate.“We will be monitoring that on a monthly basis,” he said.

The clinics, which operate on an annual budget of about $4.7 million, saw about 18,000 patients in 60,000 encounters last year.

Zachariah acknowledges that one result of the campaign might be to make his emergency room a little less crowded. “It’ll still be crowded,” he said. “This might cut down the number of patients by a half dozen or so each day.” What it will primarily do, Zachariah said, is to result in better care for those patients.

“The goal is to keep them from ending up in the emergency department in the worst way,” he said. “It will help to keep them from getting serious, serious problems in the first place.”

Guidry, too, stresses the benefit to the patient. “I think it assures better health care,” he said.

Ben Raimer, UTMB’s vice president for community outreach, agreed.

“I think it’ll mean a lot for the overall health of the community,” he said.

The $20,000 program is funded through a $3 million community access programs grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. Raimer noted that the campaign was inspired by programs that had seen success in other parts of the country.

If it succeeds in keeping patients healthier, he said, the benefits will be well worth the expense.
“The cost of one or two hospital admissions would cover the cost of the campaign,” he said.

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Galveston County 4Cs Medical Clinic Locations

• 4700 Broadway in Galveston.

• 2000 Texas Ave. in Texas City.

• For an appointment, call (409) 938-2234 or (281) 309-0255.

• For information about finding a medical home, call the health care hotline at (409) 772-2222 or (800) 917-8906.

For More Information Contact:
Kurt Koopmann
Public Information Officer
Galveston County Health District
(409) 938-2211
kkoopman@gchd.org