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What is it?

For 85 years, the organization that has grown to become John C. Lincoln Health Network has delivered much-needed social services to the surrounding community, working to improve the health and well-being of the community. The quality of these efforts has been recognized by the esteemed Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service. The Network’s community services include Desert Mission’s food bank, children’s dental clinic, childcare center, community health clinic, neighborhood renewal, and a behavioral health center.

John C. Lincoln’s Desert Mission community services have linked their individual program data into a custom-designed database known as the Community of Knowledge to track clients’ points of entry, needs, referrals, eligibility data (e.g., for public service programs), services provided, and outcomes. The Network has also invested resources to connect the community health clinic’s electronic medical record, scheduling, and billing systems with the database, so all staff (from receptionist to physician) can quickly and easily get the full picture of each patient who is served. The data is also incorporated into patient records at the children’s dental clinic and the behavioral health center.

Who is it for?

The population served by John C. Lincoln Health Network.

Why do they do it?

In response to a community needs assessment, local residents and stakeholders said John C. Lincoln could better address community issues by developing: (1) a coordinated, as opposed to a piecemeal, approach to problems; and (2) a resource point to find out what is available in the local community.

John C. Lincoln Health Network put this feedback into action and has removed two of the largest barriers families face when they need to access social support services – the need for people to fill out duplicate forms to access services, and made information on available community resources more readily available. In many communities, each of the community service programs operated by John C. Lincoln’s Desert Mission would be its own non-profit agency, requiring a family in crisis to fill out registration papers at each agency to get the help they need. This was a frustrating and time-consuming effort.

Impact

The Community of Knowledge database has reduced frustration and improved access to a complete spectrum of support. The coordinated, custom-designed system means data collection is more consistent and accurate. Enhanced data collection provides a “big picture” of the clients we are serving, their needs, and ways to best meet those needs to provide long-term benefits.
The database provides aggregate data on the service population’s perceived needs and will, over time, indicate trends toward program effectiveness. This will tell us what we are doing right and what we can improve. A family now has multiple points of entry for obtaining services where they only have to complete one registration/eligibility process to access multiple support services, so all their basic needs can be addressed. Cross-referrals can be expedited because all programs access the same database, where each service encounter is documented and household/demographic information can easily be updated. Since this is a real-time, web-based system, information is kept current.

In addition, the Network’s services previously were administered from several different buildings across our extensive North Mountain hospital campus – which covers more than two square miles. This presented barriers to families that did not have transportation, especially those who had several young children. In 2009, John C. Lincoln’s Desert Mission purchased a vacant church adjacent to our food bank and childcare center and renovated it to house our other community service programs. Today all three health-related programs are located in one building: physical, mental, and children’s dental. This supports the “one door opens all doors” philosophy that the Network’s database was doing in a virtual manner. This new facility is located two blocks from the public bus transit center, which makes it even easier for families to access our safety net of care.

Contact: Cindy Hallman
Executive Director
Telephone: 602-870-6060, ext. 1722
E-mail: cindy.hallman@jcl.com