Optum–Hemet Community Center in California

Hemet, California, while it's growing, it's still considered pretty rural. When we started looking at Hemet and really thinking about the population that we serve there, we serve everything from pediatrics all the way up to our senior members and patients, there's a real need around the socioeconomic challenges in Hemet and there's a diverse population. We decided that instead of maybe just focusing on the seniors, this community needed something more. We use a multidisciplinary team, integrated services, to tackle the problem from multiple corners. It's about helping the health system work better for everyone and Hemet is no exception. It was very important to us to find a way to create that one-stop-shop so that everybody has convenient access to the care that they need in a single setting. We decided to bring in laboratory services, radiology services, and then we also partnered with our other Optum organization, Genoa Pharmacy to bring in pharmacy services. Pharmacy is a great resource for the patients. When I prescribe something from my  computer, I pick up the phone and speak to the pharmacist and find out if this is covered before the patient leaves the clinic.  We have also the community center in the Hemet clinic where we provide classes, healthy lifestyle, management of diabetes, classes about preventing obesity, mental health resources, supportive groups. We have a pretty deep  connection with behavioral health services and the community of Hemet. We're also able to make those connection points for our members and our patients. We also have a pretty robust gym available to all of our patients and members as well. Hemet is known as an underserved population and there are a lot of patients that have problems with access to care, a lot of patients that struggle with the transportation, problems with ability to afford their medications. We know that in the depth and breadth of the Optum services that we have solutions to bring, to bear, to break down those barriers. We decided to stand up our social  determinants program which we call Bridges. That's really about breaking down those barriers for our underserved population. Being in community, Care Delivery Organization, we want to treat the whole person as fast as we can and bring as many Optum assets to the table to show up for that person as possible. We had the patient that was discharged from the hospital and this patient really need to be seen after that discharge. Immediately, the social worker was contacting many resources, arranging transportation for the patient to be brought into the clinic, pharmacists to prepare all the medications that we [inaudible] after the discharge off the hospital. The patient showed up after that for two follow-up appointments without counseling or no-showing. Actually, she wrote me a note yesterday, she said, I need you in my life. The trust that I got from my patient, it's indescribable feeling. That's what motivates me every single day that I have the ability to help someone in need. Equitable care, access to quality care, inclusion, is something that we live and breathe every day. Every day I wake up thinking about how am I going to make a difference, and even if it's in one person's life, that's one person's life that we made easier and made sure that they could get access to the care that they needed in the time that they needed it.