11th Street Family Health Services, Drexel University

Serving Medicaid Patients and the Uninsured in an Urban Community

Background & Goal

Poor and minority populations suffer from disparities in healthcare when compared to other populations. More than 46 million Americans lack health insurance, with 17 million more “underinsured.” Minority populations suffer from a greater incidence of diseases such as diabetes and from related complications.

Eleventh Street Health Services goal is to work in partnership with the community to develop a healthy living center that is community-based and culturally relevant, providing not only access to clinical services but also to a wide-range of health promotion and disease prevention services to reduce health disparities in an underserved population.

Center Description

Eleventh Street Family Health Services, Drexel University is a Healthy Living Center operated by the College of Nursing & Health Professions that provides access to a broad trans-disciplinary team of health professionals with clinical services sustained through a partnership with the Family Practice & Counseling Network. It also has a strong educational and research component; serving as a clinical practice site for many students of the University and conducting research and documenting outcomes of the trans-disciplinary approach to care. It provides comprehensive, trans-disciplinary care to residents of public housing communities and other vulnerable populations including 26,676 clinical service visits and 1,676 home visits to pregnant or new mothers and 6,827 patient encounters in health education and wellness programs.

Evidence of Success

• Reduced pre-term births to 2.5% in African American women seen at 11th Street compared to 15.6% in Philadelphia (2011).
• Improved Quality of Life for patients participating in the fitness program, as measured by the SF 36, with a significant increase in perceived health status at 3, 6 and 12 month follow ups (2011).
• Decreased unnecessary medical specialty workups for children whose issues are family/behaviorally based, such as enuresis, through the integration of a pediatric behavioral health consultant in primary care.
• Increased the use of self-care plans for patients with chronic illness to 100% and increased patients’ self-efficacy through the Living with Chronic Illness Program (2010-2011).
• Recognized by the Pennsylvania Governor’s Chronic Care Collaborative as one of 3 state-wide practices with an innovative approach to lowering blood pressures in patients with serious diabetes.
• Replicated the Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Events study with the 11th Street adult patient population, revalidating the role of childhood trauma and adversity in the development of health problems in adults. Used these data to plan relevant programs to address trauma (2010).
• Received a Healthy Workplace Award from the Philadelphia Business Journal for its efforts to provide time and opportunities for staff to participate in health promoting activities (2010 & 2011).
• Included as a case study in the IOM report on The Future of Nursing to illustrate community partnerships to reduce health disparities.
• Named on the Innovation Exchange of the federal Agency for Health Quality Research (AHQR) for opening access to care.
• Serves as a clinical practicum site undergraduate nursing, nurse practitioner, physical therapy, creative arts therapies programs and from Drexel’s School of Public Health.
• Received more than 20 million dollars in grant funding from federal agencies, private foundations and corporations since 1998 to build and support the 11th Street trans-disciplinary model of care.