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The WakeMed Center for Community Health is designed to meet the diverse and complex needs of Southeast Raleigh, offering medical, mental health and community resources. Dr. Brian Klausner, the executive medical director, says treatment administered at the center is designed to empower patients to understand and take charge of improving their health.
“In the short term, [it’s about] stabilizing their medical conditions, giving them access to medications they need… but in the long term, how do we kind of get into empowering the patients to learn more about their health?” said Dr. Klausner.
The Center for Community Health is based on an integrated care model including primary care, psychiatry, trauma-informed therapy, case management, homeless engagement assistance and resources, and transitional health. The center also provides mobile and home health services, and education.
The renovated building, which opened in October 2022, is located west of the WakeMed Raleigh Campus. The Center for Community Health largely refers patients based on analytics, noting the patients that seek care in the emergency room or are readmitted to the hospital multiple times annually for a chronic illness or condition.
“A lot of the things that were driving poor outcomes had nothing to do with hospitals or clinics, it was the struggles that our patients were facing on a daily basis, the social determinants of health, the poverty, the lack of access to insurance,” said Dr. Klausner.
Focusing on providing care for the whole person and searching for the root cause of their ailment often leads back to trauma and behavioral health, according to Dr. Klausner. He credits the integrated care approach and trauma-informed therapy to the success of WakeMed Center for Community Health.
Leaders from the Center for Community Health share their model with other hospitals and communities in hopes they consider applying similar approaches to their value-based care models or population health initiatives.
More information on WakeMed Center for Community Health can be found here.
