NSC featured by the Harvard Public Health Review

The Philadelphia Refugee Health Collaborative (PRHC) led by Nationalities Service Center (NSC) has been featured by the Harvard Public Health Review’s most recent special issue on refugee health.  The PRHC (http://www.philarefugeehealth.org), formed in 2010, is a partnership between local refugee resettlement agencies and health care providers which provides refugee health screening and ongoing primary care for the 800 refugees arriving to Philadelphia annually.  Since its creation, the PRHC has helped to improve health outcomes by providing access to high-quality, community-centered health care. Additionally, the model has successfully decreased the time to initial health screenings, connected refugees to a patient-centered medical home, and addressed simple and complex medical needs of refugees, while also improving the capabilities of health care providers and health systems to meet the needs of these vulnerable newcomers. “The PRHC has provided a unique learning opportunity for our family medicine residents and medical students, giving them the hands-on experience to practice global health at the local level,” states Dr. Marc Altshuler, Director of the Jefferson Center for Refugee Health.  These achievements have made the NSC-led PRHC a national model for providing continuing health care to all newly arrived refugees, with a particular focus on those facing complex medical and social challenges. “We are so proud that the PRHC can serve as a nationally recognized model for ensuring health care access to vulnerable refugees,” states Margaret O’Sullivan, NSC’s Executive Director.  Most recently, the PRHC has been recognized as Center for Refugee Health Excellence by the CDC.  NSC and the Jefferson Center for Refugee Health partnered to co-author the article.

Read the article here:  http://harvardpublichealthreview.org/a-collaborative-approach-to-promoting-continuing-care-for-refugees-philadelphias-strategies-and-lessons-learned/