Panhandle Achieves Success Through Collaboratives: 

Since 1993 Panhandle Community Services Community Health Center (PCS) has provided primary care services to the underserved in Gering, Nebraska and the surrounding area.  In addition to being funded as a Community Health Center, PCS receives funding as a Migrant Health Center and participates as a primary site for the Ryan White Collaborative in western Nebraska. 

In 1999 PCS became a participant in the Diabetes Collaborative. (Collaboratives are an aggressive, innovative program, launched throughout the U.S. by the Bureau of Primary Health Care in collaboration with health centers and freestanding National Health Service Corps (NHSC) to address health disparities, access to care, and a changing marketplace.) In February 2004 PCS joined the Cardiovascular Collaborative and in March 2004, the Depression Collaborative. 

The PCS Collaboratives Team is led by Health Disparities Coordinator Phyllis Smith, RN, CDE and includes John Carrington, PA-C; Betty Kenyon, Dietitian; Milton Johnson - Medical Center Director; and Sonjia Serda - Behavior Health Consultant.

Smith feels the success and greatest source of pride in the effort comes from the improved client outcomes. Achievements of the PCS Collaboratives include:

• PCS has seen a decrease in the amputation rate by increasing emphasis on foot care and education programs.
• The average HbA1c for PCS clients five years ago was 8.5; today it is 7.7. 
• The ability of the clients to self-manage their chronic diseases has gradually progressed.

The center has experienced some of the frustrations many other centers have encountered, primarily the lack of enough time or money to do all they need or want to do.  However, PCS recognizes the entire staff has an interest in improving patients’ quality of care.

“It is exciting to be part of a cutting edge program with research,” says Carrington.  “It is a retention tool as it maintains excitement and a desire by the patient to remain with PCS.” 

The success of the Collaboratives model has also spread beyond community health centers.  A local private practice group in Gering has modeled their Diabetes Care Center after the Collaboratives process.

For more information on the PCS Collaboratives, contact Phyllis Smith at psmith@pcsw.com.  Smith can be reached at (308) 632-2540.