Falmouth – The Massachusetts HEALing Communities Study will host a faith community forum on opioid use and overdose prevention on Thursday, May 19 from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm, with complimentary dinner and refreshments provided from 5:30 to 6:30 pm.  The forum will provide information about the many pathways available to face the challenges of opioid addiction and ways to provide resources to those struggling with substance use disorder. The free event is open to the public and will be held at Saint Barnabas’s Episcopal Church, 91 Main Street in Falmouth.

This event is being hosted by Reverend Will Mebane of Saint Barnabas’s Episcopal Church and Rabbi Elias Lieberman of the Falmouth Jewish Congregation, and will feature personal stories of recovery from community members.  A panel discussion will feature Sarah Bagley, MD, Boston Medical Center; Nancy Regan, Nurse Practitioner and Manager of Substance Use Disorder Program, Community Health Center; Kate Lena, Substance Use Prevention Program Manager, Barnstable County Human Services; and Jeff Rose Sr., Recovery Coach, Community Health Center. The Community Harm Reduction and Treatment (CHART) mobile van will also be at the event and will offer an optional naloxone training to those interested in learning how to reverse an opioid overdose.

Through personal stories and an engaging panel discussion, this forum will address faith-based communities’ response to the opioid epidemic and discuss topics such as talking to loved ones who are struggling with addiction; the role of mental health in addiction; the use and benefits of medications for opioid use disorder; recovery coaching and peer support; and harm reduction principles and benefits. 
                          
This program is part of the Bourne and Sandwich HEALing Communities Study-Massachusetts Coalition, convened by Boston Medical Center and sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The coalition is attended by a multi-disciplinary group of community stakeholders including local and state government, public health and health care agencies, harm reduction agencies, criminal justice and law enforcement, recovery centers, and individuals with lived experience.  This study aims to decrease opioid-related fatalities in Bourne and Sandwich and 15 other Massachusetts communities. To learn more about this study, and other programs to help individuals with substance use disorders, please visit www.HEALTogetherMA.org/Barnstable.

For more information about the event or to RSVP, please email Anna Martin at [email protected].

Centerville – In keeping with Community Health Center’s mission to increase access to care and meet the needs of the community, they are pleased to announce the addition of primary care services to their Centerville office located at 1185B Falmouth Road, provided by Dr. Emily McClure. The addition of this highly requested service in Centerville will allow patients even greater flexibility and convenience when selecting where to receive their health care. Primary care services include routine care, dealing with chronic illness, health screenings, immunizations, and more. The CHC Centerville office will also continue to provide walk-in care with convenient hours on Monday – Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Dr. McClure will begin accepting new patients in January.      

Dr. Emily McClure joins Community Health Center after many years in solo family practice in Decatur, AL, treating patients from 8 to 108 years of age. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Bowdoin College in Maine, before attending Yale University School of Medicine where she received her Master of Public Health in Infectious Disease Epidemiology. Dr. McClure earned her Doctor of Medicine at University of Tennessee, Memphis and completed her residency in family practice at the University of California San Francisco’s rural health campus in Fresno. She is a member of the American Board of Family Practice and is able to speak and write in medical Spanish with patients.

Mashpee – Community Health Center is proud to welcome Dr. Fanny Giron, MD and Dr. Lyla Blake, MD to CHC’s Mashpee and Falmouth locations respectively. Dr. Giron received her Doctor of Medicine from the Universidad Catolica de Honduras in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, followed by her internal medicine residency at Loyola Medicine MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, IL where she received the PGY-1 Clinic Resident of the Year Award. She has co-authored multiple papers published in multiple medical journals. Dr. Giron is a member of the American College of Physicians and American Medical Association. She has an extensive history of volunteerism as a general physician and translator in Honduras and speaks Spanish fluently.       

Dr. Lyla Blake received her Bachelor of Science in Toxicology from Northeastern University in Boston, before attending Hahnemann University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA where she received her Doctor of Medicine. Dr. Blake received her post-graduate training as a Chief Resident at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Dr. Blake then attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH where she received her Master of Public Health from the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Dr. Blake has served as a Contract Physician with SteadyMD and Staff Physician with The Cleveland Clinic before joining Community Health Center. She is a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Institute of Functional Medicine and is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

Mashpee – Community Health Center has been Recognized for Advancing Health Information Technology (HIT) for Quality by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), for the third consecutive year. This award recognizes health centers that meet all criteria to optimize HIT services that advance telehealth, patient engagement, interoperability, and collection of social determinants of health to increase access to care and advance quality of care. This recognition further supports Community Health Center’s continued focus on the community’s health and well-being and commitment to reduce barriers and increase access to quality care for all. This includes utilization and advancement of technologies such as MyChart patient portal, SmartExam, mobileRx, telehealth offerings, patient surveys, and video interpreting services.

“Our health care teams are at the frontline of providing high quality care for our patients,” said Lee Wotherspoon, Quality Development Coordinator at Community Health Center. “Their performance and interactions with our patients demonstrate a daily commitment to our mission, vision, and values. Prioritizing innovation and technology means our health care teams have a robust electronic health record, telehealth platform, and communication tools to support their work providing the best integrated care for our patients. We are proud to be recognized as a quality leader, and always strive to continuously improve.”

Community Health Center was also recognized as a Bronze Health Center Quality Leader, placing in the top quartile of health centers nationally, and has received Patient Centered Medical Home Recognition. These awards recognize the highest performing health centers nationwide, as well as the health centers that have made significant quality improvement gains from the previous year.

Community Health Center of Cape Cod announced today that it has shortened its name to Community Health Center (CHC).  The organization’s name change is accompanied by a new logo, television advertisements, digital communications campaign and website enhancement. “Community Health Center” was chosen to stay true to CHC’s roots as a vital medical facility offering comprehensive, high quality, compassionate health care for all, and to better reflect how people refer to the organization.  The new name is accompanied by a marketing campaign highlighting CHC’s presence as a Medical Home for its patients where their medical, dental, behavioral health, and optometry services are all under roof, and where CHC’s staff makes them feel at home. 

“Often, we think of home as our comfortable place. A place where others look out for our well-being and care about us. That’s exactly the spirit of Community Health Center,” said Karen Gardner, Chief Executive Officer of Community Health Center. “Our vision is to be a health care home of choice that reflects the health care needs of all members of our community and to empower anyone who walks through our doors to lifelong wellness.”

The CHC brand video, called “Your Medical Home,” emphasizes to the community that CHC offers a complete range of health care professionals who provide primary medical care, behavioral health, complete dental care, full pharmacy services, vision and eyeglass services, and state-of-the-art technology, all in one place. The video ends with the tagline, “Our team does more that make you feel well, we make you feel at home,” which allows CHC to remind people that there is an award-winning medical center close to their home. To view Community Health Center’s new brand video, please visit chcofcapecod.org/about-us/.

As part of Community Health Center’s continued focus on quality improvement, innovation, and responding to the consumer voice, CHC is now offering a convenient new prescription refill tool, mobileRx. Patients can download the mobileRx app to their iPhone and Android and set-up a personal account to use securely. Once patients have selected their preferred Community Health Center pharmacy location from the search tool on the app, they can begin to request prescription refills and access additional information through the app. Prescriptions can also be saved to a personal account for easy refills at a later date.

“It’s important that our pharmacy departments continue to offer multiple avenues to enhance medication compliance and patient access,” said John Correira, Director of Pharmacy Services. “This is all done right through a secure application on their mobile phone, mobileRx saves time and the technology is very user friendly.”

Patients can request up to six refills at a time, and if more are needed the process can be repeated. The mobileRx app also displays if the patient has refills remaining on their prescription, the last time a medication was filled, if a prescription is currently ready for pick-up, along with pharmacy information including hours, contact numbers, directions, and policies.  

Community Health Center has three pharmacies providing prescriptions, one in Mashpee (107 Commercial Street), Bourne (123 Waterhouse Road), and Falmouth (210 Jones Road).  All locations have knowledgeable staff and offer convenient hours.  Community Health Center patients can use either pharmacy to access prescriptions written by a patient’s provider (medical, dental, behavioral health, and walk-in).  All locations also serve as a Retail Pharmacies, which are open to the public, with the ability to fill prescriptions from community providers. Communinity Health Center pharmacists ensure patients fully understand their medications and check for any possible harmful interactions or contraindications Pharmacists also help find alternatives to reduce cost and the number of medications being taken. Community Health Center’s pharmacy team will make sure patients are getting the best results from their medications. For more information about mobileRx and other pharmacy services available at Community Health Center, or to become a patient, please visit www.CHCofCapeCod.org or call (508) 477-7090. 

Saturday, May 1st from 9am-1pm the Health Center is hosting a Hiring Event at our Bourne office at 123 Waterhouse Rd! No appointments needed, receive an interview the same day, and if hired there’s a $500 sign-on bonus!! You can check out our available openings at www.chcofcapecod.org/job-openings. See you Saturday!

Community Health Center of Cape Cod stands with our Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) staff, patients and those in the community in condemning anti-Asian violence and discrimination. Racism is a public health crisis, resulting in emotional trauma and stress – people of color often feel unsafe and unseen. Our team at the Health Center is committed to supporting all individuals experiencing the impact of violence and negativity, and hope that together we can continue to build a community of healing, health and strength.

While bias and discrimination can appear in many different ways, our Health Center is committed to health equity for all. We continue to take a stand to promote equity and racial justice, support staff and patients who have been marginalized and prioritize antiracism in our community. Health centers in this country were founded on the basis of providing culturally competent care and helping individuals overcome geographic, cultural, linguistic, and other barriers to receive this care. Community Health Center of Cape Cod strives to eliminate systemic racism and provide access for all in a safe, healthy and inclusive environment.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Karen L. Gardner
Chief Executive Officer

David V. Peterson, Jr.
President, Board of Directors

Community Health Center of Cape Cod is proud to announce the integration of Recovery Coaching into their Substance Use Disorder program, thanks to participation in the HEALing Communities Study. The Health Center welcomes Jeffrey Rose to their team as their first Recovery Coach. A Recovery Coach is a unique role with a strong base in trust building, compassion and empathy. Recovery Coaches have lived addiction experience with long term recovery, as well as specialized training to guide fellow recoverees toward achieving their recovery goals. As an integrated part of the Health Center’s Substance Use Disorder (SUD) program, Mr. Rose will connect with recoverees within the Health Center and the community to help remove barriers and obstacles to recovery through mentorship and guidance. Mr. Rose joins the SUD program with over four years of experience in recovery support roles on Cape Cod, most recently as a Recovery Specialist for the Gosnold Emergency Department, and he holds multiple specialist and counselor certifications in the substance use recovery field. 

Community Health Center of Cape Cod offers an office-based substance use disorder treatment program that serves people who need assistance with recovery from substance use in a compassionate environment. The Health Center offers a medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) program for substance use disorder using Suboxone or Vivitrol. This MOUD service is open to the public and all individuals can participate, even if they are not Health Center patients. Substance use disorder treatment services at Community Health Center of Cape Cod provide access to a structured, safe and empowering environment, consultation to discuss and develop an integrated treatment plan, integrated comprehensive care that can include addiction services, behavioral health group sessions, primary care follow-ups, and personalized pathways to recovery with the consistent guidance of the addiction specialty team. The Bourne and Sandwich coalition of the HEALing Communities Study, led by Boston Medical Center, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) aims to decrease opioid overdose deaths in Bourne and Sandwich, and 15 other Massachusetts communities, by 40 percent. Community Health Center of Cape Cod is a member of this coalition which aims to increase access to important health care resources, provide recovery support services to help high-risk individuals stay in substance use treatment, increase access to NARCAN®, and reduce barriers to care for people who use drugs and have a substance use disorder within the towns of Bourne and Sandwich. To learn more about the HEALing Communities Study, visit www.HEALTogetherMA.org/Barnstable. For more information about substance use disorder services available at Community Health Center of Cape Cod, visit www.CHCofCapeCod.org, or call (508) 477-7090. 

If you have had close contact (within 6 feet for 15 minutes or longer) with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, you should be tested 4 days after exposure to reduce the chance of a false negative test. Per CDC guidelines, you should self-isolate for 10 days after the exposure, even if you test negative for COVID-19. Community Health Center of Cape Cod offers COVID-19 testing for symptomatic and asymptomatic registered patients, and for unregistered asymptomatic patients. If you are having difficulty breathing or tightness in your chest, please call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.

For more information and updates on Community Health Center’s guidelines and response to COVID-19 please click here.

If you have any questions, or would like additional information, please call (508) 477-7090 or visit www.chcofcapecod.org.