An innovative partnership between The Wright Center for Primary Care and Children’s Service Center has allowed these organizations to take a national model for integrated health services one step further within Children’s Service Center’s new outpatient clinic building, located at 335 South Franklin Street location in Wilkes-Barre.

The Children’s Service Center’s integrated model in this newly expanded space features an on-site pharmacy through a partnership with Genoa Pharmacy, located on the first floor, alongside the Children’s Service Center clinic, which offers behavioral health services to children, adolescents, and their families. The Wright Center for Primary Care’s five-room primary healthcare clinic is located on the second floor of the building and provides healthcare services to the general public at all age groups, including Children’s Service Center patients and their families. Patients of both organizations have access to the pharmacy and have reported that the on-site availability of the pharmacy provides a unique convenience.

“In the case of Children’s Service Center, it was known that integrated care certainly demonstrated the best health outcomes, and, in our case, we’ve been offering behavioral health services for 157 years here in Luzerne and surrounding counties,” said Susan Hennemuth, Director of Development for Children’s Service Center. “The evidence was there that our kids needed to see physicians. The Wright Center was doing similar things in Lackawanna County and the fit was right. All the staffing seemed to match and the timing was perfect.”

“We’re not just co-located; we’re truly integrated,” said Maria Montoro Edwards, PhD, CRA, Vice President of Grants and Strategic Initiatives at The Wright Center. “You could have a primary care provider and a behavioral health provider in the same building, where they’re located next to each other, but, we’re more than that. Our staff and Children’s Service Center staff know each other and we can coordinate [shared patient] care.”

This partnership gives patients an accessible option for both behavioral health and primary care in a one-stop shop. As the region’s leader in mental health services for children, CSC provides services designed to meet the individualized needs of the region’s neediest children, adolescents, and their families. The CSC’s Assessment, Crisis, and Referral Services are staffed 24-hours a day, seven days a week, by psychiatric professionals for initial assessment and referral. The CSC offers a variety of services across a continuum of care from least restrictive to residential.   Central to its mission, the CSC constructed the new facility to expand its programming to provide a “medical home” for child and adolescent clients.   Hennemuth says that with this newly renovated space, patients “can move between each part of the integrated program.  It’s amazing.  And, It’s working.”  

Children’s Service Center and The Wright Center for Primary Care are also working on upgrading and linking their electronic medical records, so notes on shared patients can be viewed by both organizations, truly integrating their care of patients served by both non-profits.

In addition to serving Children’s Service Center patients and their families in this new clinical space, The Wright Center for Primary Care has also opened its doors to the public, providing health assessments and well visits, physical exams, sick patient visits, treatment for infections and minor injuries, preventative health services, health/wellness education, vaccines, tobacco cessation, pharmacist supervised medication reconciliation, cardiac monitoring/EKG, chronic disease self-management support, family planning, and women’s well visits. In the near future, blood draws will be offered on site, as well as dental services, through a partnership with Moses Taylor Foundation, Scranton. Three portable dental chairs, an X-ray machine will be in use at various times throughout the month and public health hygienists will offer basic fillings, X-rays, basic restorative care, sealants, and fluoride treatments. 

The Wright Center for Primary Care accepts appointments and walk-ins from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. For more information, call 570.591.5283.

For appointments with Children’s Service Center, call 570.825.6425.