Health Enterprise Zone: A Population Health Approach to Health Disparities

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

The Prince George’s County Health Enterprise Zone (PGCHEZ) is one of five health enterprise zones that were competitively awarded to counties by the State of Maryland in 2013. The State funded the zones to design and implement projects would improve health outcomes and that would bring culturally competent health services to medically underserved populations. The Prince George’s County Health Department (PGCHD) which manages the PGCHEZ created a “healthcare neighborhood” in a previously medically underserved community. PGCHD recruited private partners to establish a comprehensive primary care network of five (5) holistic patient-centered medical homes with full-time clinical staff that provide culturally competent care to an unduplicated count of 41,614 racially diverse patients in a zip code that formerly lacked any full-time primary care providers. PGCHEZ also delivers community care coordination services to manage the health and social needs of medically and socially complex patients. These services are delivered by a team of community healthcare workers (CHWs) managed by a clinician and overseen by a community care coordination team that links patients to multiple public and private service providers. The CHWs facilitate access to care; provide patient navigation services; promote medication adherence; and coordinate care to prevent hospital readmissions and emergency department (ED) visits. To date the care coordination efforts have reduced beneficiaries’ health care costs by as much as 50% and also greatly reduced the number of hospital visits.