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OCR for page 225
Columbia University-
HarIem Hospital Primary
Care Network
Margaret C. Heago~r~y
Central Harlem is one of the most economically depressed communities
in New York City. In 1978 about 30 percent of the population, predom-
inantly black and Hispanic, had incomes below federal poverty standards
and about 30 percent were on some form of public assistance. Twenty
percent of the population was unemployed. An estimated 60 percent of
the community's adolescents are unemployed. As might be expected, the
mortality and morbidity rates in Harlem are also high. In 1975 the age-
adjusted death rate in Central Harlem was the highest in the the United
States.
Columbia University-Harlem Hospital Center, an 811-bed municipal
hospital, is the largest health facility within this country. As the major
provider of health services the hospital embarked upon a program to deliver
a decentralized yet coordinated system of primary health care services within
the community.
The planning for the program began in the spring of 1978, when an
article in the New York Times concerning the health status of the population
of Central Harlem generated considerable local and federal government
interest. The local congressman established a task force to investigate the
causes of these morbidity and mortality rates, and the then-secretary of
Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph Califano, established a Harlem
Health Task Force to investigate the causes of and remedies for this prob-
lem. Using this manifest political concern, the administration and profes-
sional staff of the hospital and the administration of the New York City
Health and Hospitals Corporation submitted a grant under the federal
225
OCR for page 226
226
PART II: PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
Urban Health Initiative Program to establish several small primary care
programs within the community.
In the fall of 1979 the Urban Health Initiative grant was awarded to
establish a primary care network administered by the Harlem Hospital
Center. By sumrr~er 1980 three sites for these programs had been identified,
and physicians, all members of the National Health Service Corps, were
recruited to work in these clinics.
The first clinic, opened in September 1980 within a moderate-sized
housing pro ject, is staffed by a full-time pediatrician, a half-time obstetrician-
gynecologist, and a full-time and half-time internist. The second clinic opened
in an empty school annex located within a densely populated housing pro ject
in November 1980. It is staffed by two pediatricians, two internists, and
one full-time obstetrician-gynecologist. The third clinic, which opened in
April 1981, is housed in an empty school annex and is staffed by a full-
time pediatrician, a full-time internist, a half-time internist, and a part-time
obstetrician-gynecologist. A fourth small clinic is scheduled to open in July
1982.
To develop a new primary care program in a disadvantaged urban com-
munity during an economic recession and during a general government
retrenchment in its approach to social policy has required a pragmatic if
not opportunistic approach tO planning and implementation. The experience
in the development of this project suggests that in the contemporary climate
any innovation in the health care delivery system will need not only a
conceptual basis but also extraordinary flexibility, imagination, and persist-
ence.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
central harlem
