PCPCH Spotlight: JD Health and Wellness.

The PCPCH Program recently conducted a site visit with a PCPCH that went the extra mile to improve access to primary care within its wider community. JD Health and Wellness in Salem shared their journey with us of how they came to provide high-quality, compassionate, accessible, integrated primary care and behavioral health services in both the traditional office setting and at multiple local community-based settings in need of access.

“During the Covid-19 pandemic our entire way of functioning as a society and community shifted in a way never experienced before.” But for JD Health and Wellness, it also came with the opportunity to provide support for their neighbors at the Union Gospel Mission men’s shelter in Salem, including pre-entry rapid covid testing that allowed the unhoused men in the area to gain entry and shelter just before the cold rainy season in the Fall of 2020. JD Health & Wellness also provided brief screenings for physical and behavioral health and offered further services as needed.

Word of their success in offering accessible, same-day, on-location primary care and behavioral health services spread throughout the community, and JD Health and Wellness ended up being approached by several of the other local shelters and transitional housing agencies hoping to work together. In response, JD Health and Wellness decided to both continue services at their main Lancaster Drive location, and provide them at additional community locations including the Union Gospel Mission men’s shelter, the Simonka women’s and children’s shelter, Arches Inn temporary and medical recovery housing, Church at the Park Village of Hope and Catholic Community Services, as well as the Navigation Center and the PAC Community Center for youth.

JD Health and Wellness now works to provide in-person, telemedicine, and telephone visit options and has expanded their services to include primary care, behavioral health, medication-assisted treatment for opiate use disorder, peer support and community health workers, social supports, BHI, and remote patient monitoring. They operate with the belief “that all people deserve health care and the most effective health care is integrated to include both physical and behavioral health.” Their onsite collaboration with local community partners—coordinated between all of their departments— is making a difference in the lives of those in their community impacted by the homeless crisis.

“It is a privilege to be accepted into this community and be able to bring our compassionate care to all we can reach.” - Anna Boyd, N.D.