Agenda - 02-01-1993 - III-B - Laserfiche WebLink

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12 ABSTRACT The Orange County Coalition for Healthy N.C. Youth plans to develop a primary care teen clinic setting in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro Office of the Orange County Health Department. The clinic will be modeled after a successful clinic in the Hillsborough office established in 1988. This clinic will offer primary care services provided by staff from the Adolescents-in-Need project, residents from the University of North Carolina's Division of Community Pediatrics, and nursing staff who currently serve the schools as school nurses. The target population to be served in the Southern Orange clinic will the 20% of adolescent students identified as having no medical provider. Clinic services will be available to these students who do not use the existing medical resources due to access problems including transportation, money, confidentiality or fear of larger medical complexes., The clinic in Northern Orange will continue to provide services to the same type of student identified above. The current model offers comprehensive care from the school to the clinic to appropriate community agencies and back to school. The teen can enter the loop at any of the above points. The key to success has been the continuity of the school nurse who also works in the clinic, and the Adolescents-in-Need project, providing direct medical services in the clinic and medical and social work guidance through follow-up counselling in the homes and school contacts to students in the school system and adolescents referred by the clinic. The current clinic serves 300 adolescents per year. The school nurse serves approximately 200 students per month and the AIN Project serves 100 students per month. The AIN model has been in existence since 1981 and has proven successful in Orange County. It has been replicated 10 sites across North Carolina. The teen clinic has been in operation since 1988. A key element in the existing clinic and the proposed clinic will be access to mental health care for adolescents in the clinics. This service exists now only on a limited referral basis. We hope to establish mental health counseling on an as needed basis at the clinic and work on options to enhance mental health services in the schools. Accessibility will be addressed through a transportation plan that will pick students up at school and deliver them to the clinic. Fee for services will only be an issue as Medicaid and private insurance funding is worked out. Confidentiality will be addressed as per health department policy. If an adolescent needs to be treated for an illness other than STD's the parents will be contacted. The services that an adolescent is entitled to without parental permission will be offered in that manner In the first quarter of funding we plan to pay 20% of a medical providers salary to do the necessary networking with the Health Department, Mental Health Center, existing medical providers including private providers, UNC Hospitals and Orange Chatham Comprehensive Health, schools and communities in order to facilitate a fully operating adolescent clinic in Southern Orange County in September of 1993. The clinic will be staffed by a nurse, a clinic manager, a medical provider from the Adolescents-in-Need project and the chief resident in pediatrics if needed. In the existing clinic efforts will focus, in the first year, on expansion of medical service and the inclusion of mental health services. The key to success of the existing program has been the network of services available through the agencies involved. A great deal of effort will be put into continuing this follow up relationship and developing the network in the Southern Orange community. The home visit component, the clinic to school link and the providers offering follow up in the community have proven to be the keys to success and will be the foundation on which the new endeavor will be built. Individuals who have proven that comprehensive services can be provided to adolescents will be the line level providers in the new clinic concept.