"Gateway to Care" Paves the Way to Health Care for Uninsured

Harris County Hospital District has teamed with several public and not-for-profit health care providers to form Gateway to Care, a program to increase access to health care for the more than 800,000 uninsured and underinsured residents of Harris County.

The program is made possible by legislation titled the "Community Access Project" legislation, authored by Congressman Gene Green. Passage of the legislation resulted in the U.S. government awarding a $1,034,000 grant to the Harris County Collaborative, a group of 64 individual members and organizations throughout the community who are dedicated to increasing access to health care for the underinsured and uninsured.

"Because of this support, we’ll be able to improve existing health care services by establishing better communication and coordination among public health care providers. Many health care providers, advocacy groups and faith-based ministries are interested in improving and increasing access to services for the uninsured," said Dr. Margo Hilliard, administrator of Harris-LBJ Hospital and chairwoman of the Community Access Project.

Some of those participating in the collaborative include the Harris County Hospital District, The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston, the city of Houston and Harris County Health Departments, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, the March of Dimes, the United Way Gulf Coast of Texas and numerous community organizations.

Currently, the collaborative has six "navigators" – individuals who help people navigate the system to receive assistance. Three of the six navigators work at Harris County Hospital District Community Health Centers. To date, more than 2,500 individuals have been helped through the collaborative, which commenced last month. In the next two years, 13 navigators and 200 trained volunteer navigators will assist in exceeding those numbers.

Additionally as members of the collaborative, the Harris County Health Department subcontracted with the Hospital District and its health maintenance organization, Community Health Choice, to pilot an after-hours telephone nurse triage service to assist uninsured residents in Northeast Houston. The nurse triage pilot program is designed to decrease the amount of inappropriate emergency room visits. By March, the program will provide telephone consultations, referrals, and follow-up visits to patients participating in the pilot program.

With successful outcomes, the collaborative expects these programs to spread community wide.

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