Leslie Graham

The story of the Primary Care Coalition began in 1993, when a group of physicians and health care officials imagined a community in which every resident had access to high-quality health services. They envisioned a dependable source of health care for people with limited resources and created a framework that shared the responsibility for providing that care across the public and private sectors. The Primary Care Coalition (PCC) was formed to help make that vision a reality. The PCC has grown over the years and now works with clinics, hospitals, health care providers, and other community partners to coordinate a system of care that serves 30,000 people who face cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic barriers to receiving health care. Health services are delivered through a network independent safety-net health centers, private practices and pro-bono specialty care providers. The PCC works on many levels to coordinate services, administer the safety-net system of care and increase access to health care for low-income, culturally diverse children and adults. • We connect people to health services. PCC’s client services specialists and care managers help people apply for and enroll in health care programs, provide care management especially for people with behavioral health care needs, coordinate specialty medical care for patients referred form primary care clinics, and help patient’s access prescription medications which can be very costly. • We support health care providers, particularly safety-net clinics, with technical assistance in the areas of quality assurance, process improvement, and health informatics. • We build systems of care that meet the needs of low-income, diverse community members by bringing the local health department, hospitals, and other organizations with different skills and expertise to the table to solve shared challenges together.