Our Model
We empower patients to lead healthy lives.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—the nation’s largest philanthropy dedicated solely to health—has calculated that eighty percent of a person’s health is shaped by social determinants: the circumstances of everyday life, such as where people live, what they do for work, their access to health care, and whether their families are safe. So that’s where we start.
Care Philosophy
A Broad Definition
of Health Care
Because we consider the social determinants of health a part of health care, we provide both the clinical and nonclinical services a patient needs to stay healthy.
While our clinical team addresses patients’ medical and dental needs, our Community Health Workers address any social, legal, or economic needs—including food security, housing, employment, and childcare—and create solutions, often with the help of community partners.
When health care is welcoming and easily accessible, and when patients feel comfortable and understood, health outcomes improve dramatically. Our patient base is largely new to the health care system and often to the country; we attune our care directly to their needs.
We remove as many barriers to access as possible by providing transportation, treating patients in their native languages, and offering multiple services in one visit, including medical, dental, optometry, women’s health, behavioral health, and non-clincial assessments and referrals. If a patient needs health care outside of our office, we arrange it, provide transportation, and coordinate closely with the provider.
We meet one-on-one with each patient to explain how their care plan and various systems work, like how to pickup prescriptions, manage chronic conditions, and access social, economic, and legal services.
Culturally-Attuned Care
Team
Nurse Practitioner Leadership
Our Executive Director is a Nurse Practitioner who sees patients every day. Her firsthand knowledge ensures that we are able to continually reevaluate what it takes to place patients at the center of care and adapt our services. Her leadership ensures the culture of care, trust, and understanding we create for our patients also extends to our staff and volunteers.
Dedicated, Organized Volunteers
The energy of our highly-knowledgable, caring volunteers helps to create an environment full of joy, passion, and personal connection. A staff volunteer coordinator ensures that volunteers’ time is used efficiently and effectively. The volunteer program keeps us sustainable and grounded in our mission. It allows people to take care of each other: a basic human need, a key to personal happiness and fulfillment, and a rekindling of health care providers’ original motivation.
Community Health Workers
Public health research has shown that Community Health Worker programs lead to better patient outcomes. Our CHWs are hired directly from the communities we serve, making patients feel welcome and valued in our office. They build trusting relationships and learn about patients’ lives, the resources and needs of their communities, and the barriers they face to being healthy. They inform every aspect of the care we provide.
Passionate, Multicultural Staff
The expertise of our clinical and nonclinical staff members ensures VIM can provide high-quality, effective health care to our patients day in and day out. Because our staff is multicultural and multilingual, they can treat patients in their native languages from a cultural perspective they understand, creating an environment where patients feel safe and cared about.
Team Huddle
At the beginning of each day, all staff, volunteers, and interpreters gather together to talk through the upcoming patients individually, by name and care plan, asking questions and building team rapport. We come together around providing high-quality, compassionate care for our patients.
Atmosphere
We get to know our patients. We get to know their children and parents, where they live, where they are from, where they work. We make sure that their families are safe, that their kids are in school and have health insurance. We follow through on everything and don’t let patients fall through the cracks.
Personal Connection
Commitment to Health Equity
VIM creates new paths to equity for marginalized groups. We pay close attention to the ways systems break down for our patients, and our Community Health Workers are in regular communication with our patient communities.
When a patient is referred outside of our office—from lab work to housing services—we follow up with both the patients and the referral. If it becomes clear that community systems are not working for our patients, we advocate for them, joining and creating committees to make change.
Community Ties
None of our work happens in a vacuum. We work with the local health care system, government, nonprofits, housing works, planning authorities, schools, neighborhood groups, and more to create a healthy, thriving Berkshires for anyone who comes to live here.
“The atmosphere in the clinic radiates hope and compassion. The patients sense this, that their needs are being addressed.”
— Jeff Blake, MD, VIM Founding Physician