DUHS experiments with community healthcare

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Duke University has been focusing more attention on the surrounding Durham community by forming a partnership with Durham's Federally Qualified Health Centers, reported the Washington Post.

The project aims to reduce chronic illnesses that plague the uninsured citizens in order to reduce expensive visits to hospital emergency rooms.

"If you look at this country, the best medical centers sit in places with the worst health statistics," Victor Dzau, chancellor of Duke's health affairs, told the Washington Post. "We can't be an ivory tower. We can't just wait for sick people to come to us."

In 2009, Duke University Health System reported $45 million in charity care for patients who couldn't paid and another $50 million were "absorbed" by Duke when government reimbursements, like Medicaid, didn't fully meet the cost of treatment.

Lincoln Community Center has a much smaller yearly expense—$7.5 million—which incentivizes Duke  to cut costs by expanding primary-care services and making the community healthier.

The partnership between Duke and Lincoln Community Health have created three clinics over the past seven years—Lyon Park, Walltown and Holton—which receive 7,500 unique visitors a year.

Experts say that in the longer term such experiments in delivering community care have the potential to reduce overall healthcare costs and even help heal other wounds like race relations.