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Fair Haven Community Health Center provides comprehensive primary care with a dedicated clinical staff of physicians, nurse practitioners, physician associates, and midwives. Every patient selects her or his own primary care provider in order to establish a comfortable relationship with a provider who is knowledgeable about the patient’s medical history and needs. Patient’s feel comfortable asking the questions they want to ask and come back for important follow-up care. Our goal is to serve the community in a manner that respects their culture, language and ethnic beliefs. |
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) – the benchmark organization for quality patient care – accredited the Center for our third 3-year period in late 2005 and we continue to uphold the highest standards of care, quality improvement and program management.
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| Adults and Geriatric Care
The Fair Haven Community Health Center provides care to all ages of adults from 18 to over 100. Every adult patient is able to select a primary care provider from one of two distinct clinical teams, which are comprised of physicians and nurse practitioners. We consider this one-on-one relationship essential for good health care. We make it possible for our patients to establish a comfortable relationship with someone who is knowledgeable about their medical history and needs. Integral members of the teams are the nurses, clinical assistants and social work support staff.
In addition to ongoing monitoring of adults for physical exams and check ups, Fair Haven has exceptional program for cancer screening and the management of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular problems, asthma, kidney disease, and HIV infection. The clinic offers free first-time colonoscopies for all patients over the age of 50, and free mammograms and Pap smears for women ages 19 and over. Fair Haven is an active participant in the federal government’s Chronic Disease Care Management Model and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), which focuses on reducing health disparities. This health care model provides care beyond the one-on-one interaction between the patient and the clinician, including support with health education, self management, changes in the health care community, support for obtaining medications, and a computerized tracking system to support the team’s efforts.
The Center assists patients with referrals to specialists. Patients can also see certain specialists, including endocrinologists, hematologists, gynecologists, and infectious disease physicians, at Fair Haven. For uninsured patients, this assistance includes investigating all possible special programs for arranging support for payment of services, including enrollment in various programs for low cost or free prescriptions. Some laboratory work is performed on-site at the CLIA-certified laboratory of the Fair Havenand other lab work is sent to private or state laboratories for analysis. Fair Haven has a computerized hook up with Quest laboratories for obtaining rapid results.
The Center’s clinicians participate in the public insurance programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and SAGA. The clinicians also participate in most private insurance plans.
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Pediatric and Well-Child Care
A team of pediatricians, family physicians, and nurse practitioners provide routine physical exams and management of acute and chronic illnesses in our child-friendly pediatric wing stocked with gently used, donated books. A separate area for adolescents will be built in the near future.
The Pediatric team consists of 5 pediatricians, 2 family physicians, and 7 pediatric and family nurse practitioners as well as one physician assistant. Our team works with a dedicated staff of nurses and clinical assistants to provide care for more than 4,500 infants, children, and adolescents. This includes 1,500 children under the age of 5 who are registered for Well Baby Care. Fair Haven provides well baby exams and immunizations for these patients. We are proud to report that we have reached an immunization rate of over 90% for our well babies.
Fair Haven’s innovative early literacy program, Reach Out and Reach (ROR) encourages healthy child development and an early love of reading. Children receive a new, age and language appropriate book at each well child visit from 6 months to five years of age. Books include favorites such as Goodnight Moon in English and Spanish. Parents are encouraged to share these books with their children in any capacity they are capable. With additional contributions of new and gently used books from friends, volunteers, the Connecticut ROR Coalition, and New Haven Reads, we are able to offer a book to every child to comes to the center.
Patients select or are assigned to a primary care provider who they see for their well care, management of chronic illnesses, and the majority of acute illnesses. Pediatric staff is on call 24 hours a day to care for newborns and sick children in the hospital, and they will see sick children by special arrangement at Fair Haven on the weekend and holidays.
Most of our children are eligible for coverage under Connecticut’s HUSKY (Healthcare for Uninsured Kids and Youth) health insurance benefit plan. Additionally, the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program provides nutrition counseling and vouchers for food supplements for young children and pregnant and breast-feeding women. For more information, please see WIC.
The Center has recently been awarded grants to work on two issues that are significant for our patients and staff – pediatric obesity and asthma.
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Adolescent Care
The transition from youth to adulthood is a physical, emotional, and psychological passage. If given the opportunity, through support and accessibility to resources, youth can be resilient in absorbing setbacks and overcoming problems.
FHCHC strives to breakdown barriers that prevent adolescents from accessing primary healthcare. In order to serve adolescents of the Fair Haven Community, we provide both Clinical Services and Community Activities to target a broad range of health issues related to teens.
Fair Haven provides specialized adolescent-friendly services 3 afternoons a week. The clinical staff is particularly committed to providing care to the adolescents in a safe and non-judgmental environment in which the teens feel comfortable sharing their concerns with the clinicians. Our clinic is a safe space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender teens, which is indicated by the Rainbow Stickers present throughout the clinic. Additionally, we have displayed art created by youth in our exam and waiting rooms to promote a teen friendly atmosphere. Our staff participates in a variety of ongoing educational programs and training to ensure that they are familiar with the issues facing teens today.
Fair Haven has an ongoing partnership with Clifford Beers Guidance Clinic, where we frequently refer teens and their families in need of more intense services. For more information, please see www.cliffordbeers.org .
We are looking forward to the construction of a separate adolescent wing at the Fair Haven’s main site in the fall of 2009. We will have a separate waiting area for teens, where they will be able to engage in educational programming before their visit. We plan to incorporate art and creative expression as well as technology to promote basic health education messages and self care. Additionally, we will be constructing a wall covered with ceramic tiles painted by the youth of New Haven.
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Women's and Prenatal Health Care
The women’s care is provided as part of comprehensive primary healthcare at Fair Haven. The majority of care is provided by our midwifery team. Through a subcontract with Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, Fair Haven receives funding from the federal and state governments to provide reduced or free services for eligible women.
Through an affiliation with Griffin Hospital in 2004, Fair Haven has been designated a Women’s Community Center of Excellence and is working to enhance our services to women to include increased wellness care, health promotion and education for all our women.
We provide a full range of services including annual gynecological exams, episodic care for reproductive issues including sexually transmitted diseases, and mammography screening services in conjunction with the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center van. With funding from the Susan B. Komen Foundation’s Race for the Cure and Connecticut’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Projects, we can provide these mammography services at no cost to women without insurance. We are also a screening and registration site for the Connecticut Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Project to provide support for uninsured women to receive appropriate screenings and follow-up treatment if necessary.
Fair Haven also provides extensive prenatal care. Our goal is to give newborns and families the best possible support during this exciting period. An interdisciplinary team of certified nurse midwives, physicians, social workers, nutritionists, and outreach workers provide comprehensive prenatal care. The full prenatal package includes prenatal visits and education, delivery by the midwife at the Hospital of St. Raphael, a home visit by a midwife after the delivery, and post-partum care.
The family-focused service is enhanced by an innovative approach to prenatal care (based on the Centering PregnancyT Model), which combines the prenatal visit with childbirth education, group discussion, stress reduction, meditation exercises, and a hospital tour. Expecting mothers and their partners can have their monthly health education class and prenatal check-up all in a single visit.
Fair Haven registers approximately 150 women a year into the prenatal program. Fair Haven’s midwifery team delivers between 110 and 120 babies a year at the Hospital. With the other 50 women, Fair Haven staff screen and assist them with transferring to one of the Hospital Clinics if they do not meet the eligibility requirements of our midwifery service.
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Behavioral Health and Social Services
Our social services staff works closely with our clinicians and patients and families to assist them with housing, personal and financial issues. Life experiences are inseparable from personal health. Complex interactions in peoples' lives affect their ability to manage the challenges of even simple medical conditions. Our clinicians are sensitive to the personal problems of their patients.
Our behavioral health staff provides behavioral health and therapeutic counseling and assessments on site. We coordinate services with other mental health providers and provide outreach and referrals to mental health practitioners and programs when it is necessary for our patients. Specific services include the following:
Enabling services, such as obtaining basic needs such as food, clothing, housing
Eligibility assistance with obtaining appropriate insurance, especially Medicare, HUSKY, SAGA, and Medicare
- Assistance with bills from Hospitals and other specialties and advocating for the Health Center patients
- Case management and care coordination for various special population groups including HIV patients, prenatal patients, uninsured patients referred from the emergency rooms to us for a medical home
- Crisis intervention and one-on-one behavioral health counseling by a master's level trained therapist, a consulting psychologist, and two consulting psychiatrists.
- Substance abuse support, follow up and referrals for treatment
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HIV Care
With Ryan White Care Act funding, the Center provides a broad range of preventive and clinical services. Our thoroughly trained and dedicated team offers a collocation of services that includes primary care, infectious disease specialty care, behavioral health, HIV nutrition counseling, HIV outreach education, HIV nursing services, and data coordination. Care also includes the extensive lab work necessary for management of the disease, referrals to specialists, and support for other issues such as dental care and medication adherence. Additionally, HIV medical case managers ensure that our patients have adequate housing, access to their medications, and support with the family and environmental stressors that may be affecting their care.
Specific services include:
HIV promotion, prevention and outreach --with a particular emphasis on providing programs in the schools and in the larger community with Ryan White Part D support for outreach to adolescents. – SBHC, Karen Klein); kids – someone in their lives have HIV
Counseling and testing – In accordance with the CDC recommendation, FHCHC has implemented universal testing as part of our mission to provide comprehensive primary care. We provide testing as well as education and counseling for nearly 1,500 patients a year.
Comprehensive Primary Care and Adherence services – Every year FHCHC provides comprehensive primary care and adherence services to more than 100 individuals living with HIV or AIDS. Our services are supported by Ryan White Care Act Part A and Ryan White Early Intervention Services Care Act Part C funding.
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