July 24, 2024
Pat Lee, MD
President & CEO
I am thrilled to announce a major milestone for Central Health. As of today, we are proud to offer our patients 14 diverse specialty care services, with five more by the end of our fiscal year in September. This means in a little more than a year and a half we have gone from offering no specialty care services to 19. This rapid expansion underscores our unwavering commitment to enhancing our patients’ healthcare experience and delivering top-notch diagnostic services.
At the end of the visit, a recent patient was chatting with our front desk and said, “By the way, those translation iPads are the best thing ever! So clear, so easy. I didn’t have to put the phone on speaker and pass it back and forth or strain my poor ears. I am in love with those things.”
While Central Health system’s CommUnityCare Health Centers provides excellent preventive and primary care, specialty care has historically been a major gap. We conducted a study – the 2021-22 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) – to determine the gaps in healthcare services for Travis County’s healthcare safety-net population. This assessment revealed an urgent need for 375 specialty care physicians to meet the needs of community members with low income, who have higher rates of chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and preventable cancers, as well as behavioral health conditions and substance use disorders. Their life expectancy is a full decade less than the county median.
Thanks to the guidance of our former President & CEO Mike Geeslin and our current leadership team, we accelerated our plans. Using our financial reserves we addressed these urgent needs immediately. This move ensures our patients can often see specialists in just weeks, sometimes even the same day, rather than months.
I’m also proud to announce in a few short weeks Central Health’s first permanent multispecialty clinic will open at the former Rosewood-Zaragosa health center in East Austin. This new clinic is expected to handle between 25,000-40,000 visits annually, significantly reducing wait times for our MAP and MAP Basic members, a goal of our Healthcare Equity Plan.
“We took a patient who was unfortunately, after his hospital discharge, completely depressed, not wanting to go on, not wanting to do any medical treatments that would be life saving, and [after meeting with the team and a few follow-up visits] suddenly he kind of had a new outlook on life. He’s going to be enrolled in our transitional dialysis program. We’re going to find a way for him to do dialysis on his terms…” – Dr. Michelle Lubetzky, Central Health Nephrologist
This specialty care expansion is a significant step toward our mission of providing equitable healthcare for Travis County residents with low income. None of this would have been possible without the vision of our Board of Managers, and especially the incredible Central Health team who have worked tirelessly for months to create these new service lines from the ground up.
Thank you for your continued support as we work together to improve the health and well-being of our community.
Warm regards,
Dr. Pat Lee
CEO, Central Health
Learn More about out new specialty care services.
Watch and learn about two of our newest services, nephrology and podiatry