Reinventing health care with innovative, integrated and mobile approaches

One year after changing our name, opening the new Detroit Mack Health Center in Midtown and reaffirming our mission-based commitment to caring for the community’s most vulnerable, Wayne Health is stronger than ever.

Overcoming the challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, Wayne Health has continued to invest in new information technology and improvements in quality, safety and the patient experience, such as a care management service for chronic disease, a new patient portal, electronic health record and patient satisfaction survey.

“As the primary clinical service group for Wayne State University School of Medicine with 400 providers in 50 medical specialties, Wayne Health has long excelled at caring for patients with the most complex medical conditions, especially those from at-risk and vulnerable populations,” said Charles J. Shanley, M.D., president and CEO.

“Caring for vulnerable populations in traditional outpatient and hospital-based environments remains core to our mission. But through the dedicated efforts of the entire Wayne Health team, we want to make care more accessible and convenient for patients by reinventing care delivery, while driving sustainable improvements in population health and well-being.”

Wayne Health’s highly impactful mobile and behavioral health programs, launched in response to the pandemic, have helped accelerate this transition, by integrating primary, behavioral and preventive health services in innovative ways.

The Wayne Health Mobile Unit, which began in response to community need for COVID testing and vaccines, now offers a wide array of preventive health screenings, immunizations, patient education and linkages to medical care, social services and community resources. The unit is a collaboration involving Wayne Health, Wayne State University, ACCESS and Ford Motor Company. Ford developed the custom-fit Transit vehicles used to deliver mobile health services at community locations.

Since April 2020, the Wayne Health Mobile Unit program has partnered with approximately 250 community organizations, held 600+ preventive health events and cared for more than 45,000 people. These extraordinary efforts earned Wayne Health a 2021 Crain’s Detroit Business “Health Care Heroes” corporate achievement award recognizing the mobile unit’s success in delivering COVID testing, vaccines and other health services to the community. Perhaps more importantly, they have firmly established Wayne Health as a trusted resource for the community and highly effective partner for government and business leaders. Small businesses, like Detroit Chassis LLC and Detroit Manufacturing Systems, are also turning to Wayne Health for preventive mobile health care services to improve the well-being of employees at their work sites.

In response to the pandemic, Wayne Health Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences providers developed a Frontline Strong Together program offering mental health training and support for first responders and their families – police, firefighters, EMTs, dispatchers and corrections officers. The state provided $4.5 million in funding in support of this program, which will be expanded to first responders across the state in November.

Wayne Health Psychiatry also partnered in a Connecting Seniors program offering tech-enabled mental health screening for vulnerable seniors and compassionate care training for caregivers in Metro Detroit.

In addition, Wayne Health has gained regional and national recognition as a preferred clinical platform for transformational clinical research in partnership with Wayne State University. Some recent examples include:

• A $18.15 million WSU grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities to address cardiometabolic health disparities in the Black population leveraging our mobile health program (Phillip Levy, M.D., principal investigator)
• A $2.6 million WSU grant from American Heart Association to deploy Wayne Health Mobile Units to provide personalized health care to black residents with hypertension living in under-resourced neighborhoods in Detroit (Phillip Levy, M.D., principal investigator)
• A $7 million WSU grant from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs for a clinical trial studying whether THC and CBD can help reduce anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in U.S. military veterans (Leslie Lundahl, Ph.D., principal investigator)

The newest addition to the Wayne Health clinical care platform is our state-of-the-art infusion clinic located at the Detroit Mack Health Center. Many diseases treated with biological agents disproportionately affect specific populations and have significant environmental influences inherent to their causation and clinical course. The infusion clinic is integral to Wayne Health’s efforts to expand access for the Detroit community and a key partner in our evolving Center for Population Health Accountability.

“With continued focus and investment, and through the dedicated efforts of our team, Wayne Health will lead the nation in reimagining health care delivery, preventing future chronic diseases, and making sustainable improvements in population health,” said Dr. Shanley.