Warren stumps for health care in Lynn visit

LYNN – Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she believes community health will be the model for 21st century medical practices and stopped by Lynn Community Health Center Friday to learn how best she can support it.”What is the number one challenge you face?” she asked.”Finances,” said Executive Director Lori Abrams Berry, without hesitation.Warren, along with Rep. John Tierney, state Sen. Thomas McGee, state Reps. Lori Erlich and Robert Fennell, Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy, Councilor at large Daniel Cahill, and a handful of other city and health center leaders, spent an hour Friday touring LCHC and talking to some very surprised staff members.”When you think health centers most think federal grants because that funds them,” Berry said. “But just as important is the medicaid budget. The federal grant we get is only six percent of our budget.”Berry noted that LCHC opened in 1971 with 10 patients. Recently named the third largest health center in the state, LCHC now sees 37,000 people a year regularly including 41 percent of the city’s children, and it’s already outgrowing an addition that was just completed last year, she said.But what sets LCHC apart from most of its counterparts is the fact that primary care providers and mental health workers sit shoulder to shoulder caring for patients, Berry explained.”It’s pretty unique,” she said. “When we make a referral ? it’s a warm handoff. It’s an ?I’d like to bring in my colleague.'”The health center also offers dental and eye care services, and has nine school-based health centers located in the city’s three public high schools, two middle schools and four elementary schools.Warren said it was that kind of integrated service that excited her when it comes to community health but she also cautioned Berry and her staff.”Keep good statistics, it’s an investment in the future,” she said. “It allows us to make our pitch.”Tierney urged Berry to put together an office to track the center’s successes.”To be good advocates for you we have to be able to make good cases,” she said. “I want to help because I’m convinced you’re doing the right thing. You don’t have to convince me, I know you’re spending money the right way.”Berry said there are national studies that show every $1 spent on community health saves $3, “but we would like to do our own.”During a tour of the facility Warren surprised a handful of doctors in what Chief Medical Officer Scott Early called one of the medical team spaces. Lined with desks, the room included a dozen physicians, a half dozen behavioral health specialists and nurses who work together as a team.Warren asked if the doctors had a sense of how many patients they treat who are in need of both medical and mental health services.”I would go as high as 80 percent,” said Dr. Marc Sibella.Sibella said after working with the integrated team he couldn’t imagine practicing medicine any other way.”It changed everything,” he said, adding that it is also significantly satisfying for the doctors because they now get to treat the underlying issues as well as the medical problems.”We’ve just got to do this together,” Warren said to Berry at the end of the tour. “There is so much more to do for services but just keep pushing the edge forward.”