On the second floor of a Norcross shopping strip in one of the poorest sections of Gwinnett County, Dr. LeRoy Graham talked about the scheduled opening of Bridge Atlanta Medical Center like a father who had just witnessed his child being born.
There were no cigars to pass out but the excitement was palpable as the 62-year-old physician led a visitor around the 12,000-square-foot space, showing off its adult and pediatric clinics, pharmacy, a small prayer room and state-of-the-art kitchen.
“This is a ridiculously ambitious effort but we believe we are purposing ourselves to bring excellence to charitable health care,” Graham said.
The Bridge, scheduled to open Sept. 13, will operate like a private health maintenance organization and promises to reduce medical costs to the poor by encouraging regular checkups to detect medical problems before they require expensive treatment.
That’s one reason the center is so important. Here’s another.
Patients will be able to see both a primary-care and specialty-care physician, experts in chronic disease such as diabetes, heart and lung disease and women’s and behavioral health.
Why behavioral health, too?
Studies show that patients who need services offered at a charitable clinic like the Bridge often suffer from anxiety and depression.
“Oftentimes not treating behavioral health issues, will undermine the successful treatment of medical problems,” Graham said. “That is part of the innovative mission and vision of Bridge.”
As a physician who has spent the last 35 years caring for the sick, Graham has been keenly aware that access to quality care remains out of reach for too many of the state’s working poor, the uninsured and the undocumented.
"Obamacare was a positive step to getting people access to care but it still left a lot of people in the gap, and in Georgia that gap was particularly pronounced because the state did not expand Medicaid," Graham said.
More than 420,000 Georgia residents, for example, are considered uninsured. Of those, 35,000 live in Gwinnett County, finding themselves in the gap between Obamacare and Medicaid and Medicare.
That gap has never sat well with Graham or his pastor at Victory World Church, the Rev. Dennis Rouse. The men talked often about the problem and the need to increase access to health care to everyone, whether they could afford to pay or not.
Rouse knew that Graham, a pediatric pulmonologist, had long volunteered his time screening people for lung and other chronic diseases and that he had a heart for caring for those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to health care.
After months of talking, Graham attended a seminar at the Memphis Health Church Center, one of the largest ministry-based charitable health centers in the country, to learn more about charitable health centers.
He met representatives from Empowering Charitable Healthcare Outreach, the Fort Worth nonprofit that offers consulting services to churches and community organizations working to provide primary care to the uninsured and under-served. ECHO provided more than $50,000 in services, including training the center’s board of directors and putting together a planning committee.
In late 2014, the team secured the site just off Jimmy Carter Boulevard, and last year contractors began remodeling. The project was finished in June.
Graham said he’s had lots of help. His church has donated nearly $400,000 to date. The “Bridge” has also received $400,000 in equipment donations from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Gwinnett Medical Center and individual doctor practices.
While it costs far less to treat a patient in a doctor’s office than in a hospital emergency room, Graham said most people who do not have health insurance wait until they are grossly ill to seek care, usually at a hospital.
And they do, he said, “because they suffer from chronic conditions and don’t have a access to good primary and specialty care.”
The Bridge, he said, will address that gap by focusing on patient education so patients become active and empowered participants in attaining and maintaining their optimum health.
“We’re going to expect them to become a part of the team,” he said. “If we see you for diabetes, we’re going to expect you to go to a class on diabetes, exercise, healthy nutrition and cooking. We know that there are evidence-based guidelines for the management of all these diseases and though we are a charitable clinic we intend to treat people consistent with those guidelines.”
Public health volunteers are designing tracking systems that will allow the center to monitor disease-specific outcomes. “Not only will we do specialty care, we’re going to do it right and check ourselves,” Graham said.
I was curious, though, why at age 62 graham would take on such an ambitious undertaking.
“I’m a Christian and as a Christian I believe what the Bible says, ‘to those who much have been given much is expected’,” he said.
But this is also personal.
After serving 14 years in the U.S. Army, which included a stint in Desert Storm, Graham was diagnosed with an abnormal aortic valve that threatened his life. Surgery corrected the valve but then, in 2014, he noticed blood in his urine. A CT scan showed he had a benign cyst.
“I’m blessed,” he said. “I have good health. There are no more mountains for me to climb.”
There is, however, one more wish.
“I want the Bridge,” Graham said, “to continue to prosper and grow long after I’m gone.”
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