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“Our biggest health concern in western Virginia is effective management of chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and obesity — especially with our aging population. These diseases are often compounded by other barriers our patients face, such as poverty and lack of education.
Our mission is to improve the health of the communities we serve. Carilion Clinic is focused on initiatives that emphasize eating well, staying active and accessing care when and where our patients need it. Another significant part of our approach to addressing chronic disease is through medical homes.
Medical homes represent a fundamental shift in the relationship between patients and their doctors. Hallmarks of our approach include a higher degree of personalized care coordination, access beyond acute care episodes and identification of appropriate medical and community resources to meet patient needs.
To address issues like poverty and lack of education, we’ve helped to form organizations like Healthy Roanoke Valley that emphasize working together as a community. After all, we cannot go it alone.
Our medical home now incorporates 47 family, internal medicine and pediatric practices, 167 physicians, 60 advanced care professionals and more than 270,000 patients. Efforts thus far have been successful. In 2014, the number of Carilion patients with controlled hypertension was 15 percent higher than the national mean, and the number of diabetic patients with controlled blood sugar was 21 percent above the national mean. With those types of results, we know we’re on the right path.”
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