Christ Community Health Services is about two months away from wrapping up a pair of major projects, one of which is the completion of a renovation and expansion of its clinic at 2861 Broad Ave.
In July, it will complete the move of Christ Community’s Women’s Health Center to that same location on Broad.
Construction on the renovation and expansion piece of the Broad Avenue clinic started in November. Christ Community got a $1 million federal grant to help fund the project, which includes a nearly 2,500-square-foot addition and renovation of the existing 8,000-square-foot facility.
Christ Community Health Services is working to wrap up construction this summer at 2681 Broad Ave. The organization has been adding to and renovating its clinic there and also is moving its Women’s Health Center to that location. - Marc Burford
At the same time, Christ Community CEO Shantelle Leatherwood told The Daily News the organization decided it made sense to move its women’s health center – currently at 2400 Poplar Ave., fifth floor – back into one of its main health center locations.
“At Broad now we currently offer medical care as well as behavioral health services,” Leatherwood said. “We have an onsite pharmacy there and we offer a little bit of prenatal care, but most patients were going over to the Women’s Health Center. One of the benefits of moving the women’s health service back into the Broad Avenue health center is to ensure that moms, especially our pregnant moms, have a relationship with a pediatrician prior to them delivering.”
The other reason, she continues, is that primary care providers have asked that the service be moved back into that location. One reason came specifically for gynecology specialty consults – women tended not to want to drive far for those.
Christ Community’s Women’s Health Center and its neighborhood primary care centers provide reproductive health care and screening services to teens and adult women. Services include complete gynecological exams, family planning information, pregnancy testing and counseling, comprehensive prenatal care, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and other services.
Separate from the move of the women’s center, meanwhile, the renovation project at 2861 Broad includes the addition of two medical exam and three behavioral health rooms, a redesign and expansion of the pharmacy, and the addition of triage areas in the clinical space, among other features.
Christ Community Health Services is working to wrap up construction this summer at 2681 Broad Ave. The organization has been adding to and renovating its clinic there and also is moving its Women’s Health Center to that location. (Marc Burford)
The facility currently offers a full range of primary medical services, which includes pediatrics, prenatal and obstetrics care, and adult medicine.
“The building was completed in 2001 and has undergone little renovation since occupancy except for conversion of a classroom into a pharmacy,” according to a project summary and timeline from CCHS. It adds that the facility, through the renovations, “will evolve to support CCHS’s efforts to increase patient capacity and to provide additional comprehensive primary and preventive health services to medically underserved persons.”
As far as Christ Community’s current operational footprint, it includes six health centers within its network. The organization also has five dental centers and five pharmacies, as well as the women’s center and a mobile van in partnership with Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp.
Beyond the Broad Avenue activity, Leatherwood says, the organization also has a few other big-picture objectives on its to-do list. Those include working to serve about 63,000 patients by the end of next year, which would represent a more than 12 percent increase over the more than 56,000 unique patients Christ Community served in 2017.
Leatherwood is now more than two years into her run as Christ Community’s top executive. She’s worked at the organization since 1999 and played a significant role in helping expand its network of clinics during that time, in addition to helping it win federal grants, among other achievements.