Public Health Investment in Team Care: Increasing Access to Clinical Preventive Services in Los Angeles County

Abstract

As part of federal and local efforts to increase access to high quality, clinical preventive services (CPS) in underserved populations, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) partnered with six local health system and community organization partners to promote the use of team care for CPS delivery. Although these partners were at different stages of organizational capacity, post-program review suggests that each organization advanced team care in their clinical or community environments, potentially affecting >250,000 client visits per year. Despite existing infrastructure and DPH’s funding support of CPS integration, partner efforts faced several challenges. They included lack of sustainable funding for prevention services; limited access to community resources that support disease prevention; and difficulties in changing health-care provider behavior. Although team care can serve as a catalyst or vehicle for delivering CPS, downstream sustainability of this model of practice requires further state and national policy changes that prioritize prevention. Public health is well positioned to facilitate these policy discussions and to assist health system and community organizations in strengthening CPS integration.

Provider–Patient Interactions as Predictors of Lifestyle Behaviors Related to the Prevention and Management of Diabetes

“…In this regard, investing in individual (micro-level) approaches to combat T2DM remains a critical action. These individual-level interventions should complement, rather than compete with, the sometimes more popular policy/system (macro-level) interventions that have been implemented by federal and state public health agencies during the past two decades, including those focused on childhood obesity prevention [40][41][42] and other chronic disease control targets for the general population [43][44][45].…”

Provider-Patient Interactions as Predictors of Lifestyle Behaviors Related to the Prevention and Management of Diabetes

“…In this regard, investing in individual (microlevel) approaches to combat T2DM remains a critical action. These individual-level interventions should complement, instead of compete with, the sometimes more popular policy/system (macro-level) interventions that have been implemented by federal and state public health agencies during the past two decades, including those focused on childhood obesity prevention [40][41][42] and other health promotion in the general population [43][44][45].…”