by Annice Cody, President and CEO
I’m still figuring out how to tell people what I do now as CEO of Primary Care Coalition. By that I mean the challenge of explaining the organization I’m leading. A broad scope of partnership work makes it difficult to be both accurate and concise. How much narrative weight do I give legacy programs that focus on the uninsured, versus emerging work that looks more comprehensively at vulnerability?
Maybe it’s best to start the conversation with the purpose of our work, rather than the details of it. Perhaps that’s the sweet spot for engaging people in its importance.
So what is that purpose? Our vision is a vibrant community that supports all people in living healthy lives. It would be easy to focus on the health part of that vision, particularly in light of the day-to-day work we do, but I wonder if that isn’t somehow missing the point. Our lens is health and health care, certainly, but our vision is one of community.
The thing I like about health as a scaffolding for community is that it’s relatable. Not everyone knows the strain of housing insecurity, even if we all recognize the importance of home. But I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t needed health care. And in our American system, I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone who hasn’t struggled at some point to get the healing they need.
For as broad and wily as the notion of community can be, it’s always built around something shared: geography, history, values. Pursuing health is a shared experience, and most of us realize we’re all only one bad-luck diagnosis away from leaning heavily on healthcare.
A former board member would talk about his emotional connection to PCC in terms of Care for Kids. He realized that parents and guardians with limited resources still wanted the same healthy futures he had wanted for his children. Whatever the difference in their material circumstances, their visions and motivations were shared.
As we watch systems crumble all around us, it is tempting to despair. In the same way that watching cancer cells metastasize could feel like an inexorable march toward doom. But the antidote to that despair already exists: community. Our ability to lean on connection is the breakthrough immunotherapy for this moment.
We are each other’s answer. PCC’s role is to remind us of that.
In last month’s brainwaves we talked about PCC as a backbone, and that’s certainly true. But the piece that resonates most deeply for me is this: PCC is a connector. Whether it’s elbow to femur or grassroots to treetops, we specialize in bringing together a whole that eclipses its parts.
Consider the evidence around collaborative care as suicide prevention publicized by Shatterproof and the Bowman Family Foundation: in addition to prior research on cost savings, a study by Kaiser Permanente found a 25% lower rate of suicide attempts among patients who had received a collaborative care-style intervention than those who had not. Collaborative care, which PCC has adapted for our local safety net, is not an elaborate model. At its core, it is a care delivery model focused on primary care and mental health providers working together to leverage modest resources effectively.
Community is the ultimate multiplier. As uncertainty becomes the standard operating environment, PCC will be focused on combining the work we do best—connection—with an eye toward innovative collaboration. We’ll be focused on transforming our collective resources into the community we want to be.
I’m still figuring out how to tell people what I do now as CEO of Primary Care Coalition. By that I mean the challenge of explaining the organization I’m leading. A broad scope of partnership work makes it difficult to be both accurate and concise. How much narrative weight do I give legacy programs that focus on the uninsured, versus emerging work that looks more comprehensively at vulnerability?
Maybe it’s best to start the conversation with the purpose of our work, rather than the details of it. Perhaps that’s the sweet spot for engaging people in its importance.
So what is that purpose? Our vision is a vibrant community that supports all people in living healthy lives. It would be easy to focus on the health part of that vision, particularly in light of the day-to-day work we do, but I wonder if that isn’t somehow missing the point. Our lens is health and health care, certainly, but our vision is one of community.
The thing I like about health as a scaffolding for community is that it’s relatable. Not everyone knows the strain of housing insecurity, even if we all recognize the importance of home. But I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t needed health care. And in our American system, I’m hard-pressed to think of anyone who hasn’t struggled at some point to get the healing they need.
For as broad and wily as the notion of community can be, it’s always built around something shared: geography, history, values. Pursuing health is a shared experience, and most of us realize we’re all only one bad-luck diagnosis away from leaning heavily on healthcare.
A former board member would talk about his emotional connection to PCC in terms of Care for Kids. He realized that parents and guardians with limited resources still wanted the same healthy futures he had wanted for his children. Whatever the difference in their material circumstances, their visions and motivations were shared.
As we watch systems crumble all around us, it is tempting to despair. In the same way that watching cancer cells metastasize could feel like an inexorable march toward doom. But the antidote to that despair already exists: community. Our ability to lean on connection is the breakthrough immunotherapy for this moment.
We are each other’s answer. PCC’s role is to remind us of that.
In last month’s brainwaves we talked about PCC as a backbone, and that’s certainly true. But the piece that resonates most deeply for me is this: PCC is a connector. Whether it’s elbow to femur or grassroots to treetops, we specialize in bringing together a whole that eclipses its parts.
Consider the evidence around collaborative care as suicide prevention publicized by Shatterproof and the Bowman Family Foundation: in addition to prior research on cost savings, a study by Kaiser Permanente found a 25% lower rate of suicide attempts among patients who had received a collaborative care-style intervention than those who had not. Collaborative care, which PCC has adapted for our local safety net, is not an elaborate model. At its core, it is a care delivery model focused on primary care and mental health providers working together to leverage modest resources effectively.
Community is the ultimate multiplier. As uncertainty becomes the standard operating environment, PCC will be focused on combining the work we do best—connection—with an eye toward innovative collaboration. We’ll be focused on transforming our collective resources into the community we want to be.
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