Forging Forward: To Your Health

Dr. Anderson, a pediatrician at East Liberty Health Care Center, with a patient

Forging Forward is a series of eight articles about our region’s recovery and resiliency in the time of COVID, presented with the generous support of the Pittsburgh Foundation.

What is it to be healthy? Is it access to fresh foods? Is it a well-paying job that alleviates financial worry? Racial justice? What about access to quality healthcare? In the modern world, health meets at an intersection of many issues.

The Pittsburgh Foundation supports many of these intersections through its Critical Needs Alert online giving campaign. Every spring since 2013, this campaign has raised critical operating support for the region’s nonprofits. Using the hashtag #ONEDAY, the campaign will raise funds on Aug. 19 to benefit organizations in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties that provide basic needs including food, housing, transportation, child and senior care, as well as healthcare.

The Forging Forward series, supported by the Pittsburgh Foundation, works to draw attention to those finding ways to innovate and reinvent in the midst of multiple crises. This series is highlighting the helpers who support our neighbors in gaining access to healthy foods, safe and affordable housing, childcare as well as mental and physical health care.

In the best of times, the critical needs of people can tip the scales of health one way or another. During this moment in history--amid a global pandemic, the fight for racial justice, and an economic downturn--the intersection of these issues are not just challenges but also opportunities to transform our society.

Dr. David Hall, family doctor and co-founder of East Liberty Family Health Care Center, has been focused on transformative healthcare since 1982. ELFHCC began at Eastminster Presbyterian Church in East Liberty with Dr. Hall and Rev. Douglas A. Dunderdale with just one doctor and one nurse working out of the church’s basement.

“I was naive,” said Dr. Hall. After graduating from MIT, Dr. Hall had returned to Pittsburgh, feeling a call to serve and care for the people of the city at one of the most economically depressed times in Pittsburgh’s history following the collapse of the steel industry.

“I was 27, finishing family practice. I thought I would be at a store front just doing the same thing over and over again. But this work has allowed me to see a bigger vision and a more varied, robust approach than what I was doing on my own,” he said.

ELFHCC serves more than 11,000 individual patients annually, many who are uninsured, underinsured, under resourced, and homeless. The Center also tries to remove barriers to access. “It doesn’t matter if you are insured or not. We will provide you quality healthcare, from birth to death,” said Dr. Hall.

Now, as a ten million dollar organization with four locations in East Liberty, East End, Lincoln-Lemington, and the Hill District, the goal is to share the importance of quality primary healthcare with everyone.

Over the years, the Center has also found that there were many people who were homebound, so the organization developed a program where nurses would visit people at homes, shelters, food pantries and soup kitchens. Many people are unable to travel to the doctor due to unreliable transportation or aren’t well enough to make a trip, which creates barriers to care if not recognized and remedied.

The social workers on site can aid patients with support for transportation, employment, child care and more. They even have a dietitian on staff now to help patients living with diabetes or anyone who wants support in healthy eating habits. If patients are experiencing food insecurity, the Center can help find them resources to provide nutritious foods.

“We feel like we are the best kept secret in town,” said Rodney Jones, Sr., CEO of ELFHCC. “Not only are we affordable, but it is our goal and our mission to treat people with dignity and respect and meet them where they are,” he added.

Many of the Center’s patients have comorbidities like diabetes and heart disease. Some have behavioral health problems, and others drug and alcohol dependencies. ELFHCC’s focus is on people affected by disparities due to socioeconomic status, but Jones notes that 30% of their patients have excellent insurance plans and choose to go to ELFHCC because of the level of care.

He believes that the Center is a solution to the bigger issues pertaining to healthcare because so many people lack insurance and often delay doctors’ visits because of this. What could have then been preventative care often turns into ER visits which are costly and sometimes avoidable had quality primary care been accessible.

Jones notes that the world has caught up to what they’ve known since 1982. “Finally, people are recognizing that social determinants like food security, housing, education, employment and environment all factor into physical and mental health,” he said.

Social determinants are the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status. These factors impact the ways in which healthcare is delivered. For instance, living in food apartheid or near a factory that creates environmental waste that flows into your drinking water would cause different impacts on your physical and mental wellbeing as opposed to someone living with easy access to grocery stores and healthy air and outdoor spaces.

“Many of our patients just have a lot of challenges on their plates to begin with. ‘How can I put food on the table?’ is a question we hear often. Health comes dead last. Keeping a roof over their heads, having to work jobs that don’t allow for time to visit a doctor during the workday… We recognize these challenges and want to support our patients,” said Jo Ellen Welsh, director of development.

Part of that support is providing and expanding telehealth appointments. “We quickly went from being an organization that saw people in health centers to having a model significantly invested in telehealth. By doing this, we solved a lot of issues with our patients. It has allowed us to continue to serve our communities,” said Jones.

Jan Cassin, of Wilkinsburg, is a patient of the Center’s and is currently a member of the Patient Advisory Council. The convenience and quality of care has kept her family engaged with ELFHCC for more than 15 years.

“I have always enjoyed it there because there are many different types of providers on their medical team. I have always been able to find someone who matches my personality and be the type of practitioner I’m looking for. Because it is a Christ-centered organization, I appreciate that they offer prayer on your visit if you so desire,” she said. “I trust my practitioner and my children’s practitioners, as well,” she added.

She hopes that in the future more people, regardless of employment status, are able to access quality healthcare like that at ELFHCC. “It should be a right that everyone has good healthcare,” she said. “You want a strong nation? You need good healthcare for your citizens. Every single one of them,” added Cassin.

Looking to the future, Dr. Hall also hopes that Covid-19 is a wake-up call and sheds light on the many inequities crippling the United States’ healthcare system. Recognizing the millions of people who have lost their jobs and subsequently their health insurance during this pandemic, Dr. Hall knows that decoupling employment from health insurance is the only way forward that is humane, sensible and financially sound.

“There are so many studies that show those who lack health insurance suffer higher rates of illness and morbidity because they put off seeking care. Healthcare must be accessible to all. We provide quality primary care and people should not have to suffer because they lack insurance. We can prevent and manage diseases if people have access to the system,” he said.

Being a faith-based organization, he stresses that there is a God that loves and cares for each person and universal healthcare is an expression of that love.

In the end, society is judged on how we take care of the most vulnerable and marginalized among us. Healthcare has become commodified and politicized which has only caused harm and increased costs for everyone. Supporting organizations like the East Liberty Family Health Care Center is a way to stand up for those in our communities who would otherwise suffer needlessly. Access to quality primary health care is a form of social justice that can impact generations of lives, creating better futures for us all.

Make a donation to support the community-based programs of the East Liberty Family Health Care Center HERE.

Learn more about the Pittsburgh Foundation’s Critical Needs #ONEDAY campaign HERE