Photo courtesy of Lawndale Christian Health Center

May 11, 2010 | Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood is just five miles southwest of the Loop, the heart of downtown, where despite a bad economy, buildings continue to rise. Glass and steel glitter alongside Lake Michigan’s sparkling blue water. While the city’s skyscrapers are visible from Lawndale, the only things that glitter here are the bits of broken glass that line the curbs on the street.

In this neighborhood, Lawndale Christian Health Center shares the love of Jesus by providing health care services at a decent price. But this isn’t just a clinic in a poor neighborhood. The facility offers internal medicine care, obstetrics, family medicine, pediatric care and a pharmacy, as well as dental care, behavioral health services and substance abuse treatment. Across four locations in Lawndale and the surrounding neighborhoods, the health center received patients in nearly 250,000 visits in 2009.

The neighborhood’s needs are distinct, and Lawndale has tailored its services to those needs. And it continues to work to maintain its Christian mission and identity as it grows and matures as an organization.

“We could be an urgent care center and maybe we would see more people,” said Dr. Wayne Detmer, medical director of operations. “But Lawndale seeks to build relationships with its patients rather than churn through them. Especially in primary care, we need to focus on valuing relationships.”

Treating the whole person

For people living in poverty, even something as simple as making a doctor’s appointment can be difficult, Detmer said. Many other clinics nearby are so overcrowded that patients are not able to see a doctor when they are sick. Instead, they either get sicker or are sent to an emergency room.

“We try to set aside enough same-day appointments to accommodate those patients so that they may see their own medical providers,” Detmer said. Lawndale staff try to ensure that patients see the same medical providers each time they visit. “The relationship between the patient and her medical provider is an important one, and we make every effort to ensure that they end up together in the same exam room.”

So, in addition to seeing patients, Detmer focuses on making sure the patients’ experience with Lawndale staff and physicians is productive. It’s clear to patients that Lawndale is not a typical health care facility. The center’s tag line, “Loving God, Loving People,” is boldly written on the purple wall behind the front desk.

Phone operators work with patients to schedule appointments on the day the patients need them. Pharmacists help patients fill out the forms required by drug companies for free or low-cost pharmaceuticals.

During renovations in 2006, Lawndale redesigned the building, which had originally been a car dealership, to reduce the number of doors people needed to walk through. It had been a special challenge for women with little children and strollers to navigate the hallways. But the new floor plan was also simply more welcoming to people. Similarly, the center has installed additional windows and removed bars from others to communicate a sense of hospitality.

“It’s not just about the doctor and the patient,” Detmer said, “but from the greeters at the door on down.”

Lawndale has also made a significant investment in support staff. Social workers visit homes to address caregiving or environmental issues. For example, many neighborhood children have asthma and high lead levels. So Lawndale’s advocates work with landlords to cover up lead paint or remove old carpeting to rid homes of allergens.

These practices reflect Lawndale’s origins in Lawndale Community Church. Members of the church saw a need and created Lawndale Christian Health to address it.

“We were birthed out of Lawndale Community Church in the same way that a church births a choir,” said CEO Bruce Miller.

Growing in the community

Lawndale Christian Health Center now serves other neighborhoods with different demographics, some majority African-American and others majority Mexican, and as a result racial reconciliation is a larger piece of its work. New services require different skills from physicians and pharmacists.

A new site to be constructed two blocks from the main clinic will include a fitness center, expanded dental services and a coffee shop. The coffee shop reflects the fact that this health care center isn’t only interested in health care; it has a broader view of the neighborhood’s needs.

“Our mission isn’t just the exam table,” Miller said. “It’s employment; it’s giving people confidence.”

Miller wants to beautify the area. So in addition to adding windows and removing bars, he wants to add the coffee shop.

“We don’t have that right now because no businesses want to be in our neighborhood,” Miller said. “We’re going to change that.”

This commitment is why Lawndale has decided not to be an urgent care facility. The center is able to have the most impact in the lives of patients by caring for not just a part of the person but the whole person.

“That’s going to be better for the community,” Detmer said. “Let’s talk about dying well with an elderly person with cancer. How do we proceed, what social services are there for support?”