How Does PCSI Help Deliver Integrated Services?

How Does PCSI Help Deliver Integrated Services?

[Announcer] This podcast is presented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC – safer, healthier people.

[Host] Welcome to this podcast on Program Collaboration and Service Integration or PCSI. We will hear from several leaders in HIV AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention who will give their perspectives on how PCSI helps deliver integrated services.

[Host] Peter Whiticar, Chief of the STD AIDS Prevention Branch at the State of Hawai’i Department of Health.

[Peter Whiticar] I think we have a wonderful, wonderful example in Hawai’i of a collaboration that's based on the theme of PCSI, which is really comprehensive services serving clients. The organization is called Malama Pono, and it is the AIDS organization on the island of Kauai. This is an organization that's been around probably 15 years and was serving -- providing HIV services alone. In the last five years, I think they've really got the message and the spirit of PCSI, and as an organization, they have changed their mission to not just providing HIV services but also STD services and viral hepatitis services. As a result of moving away from HIV alone into STDs and hepatitis, they've broadened the base of services that they can provide to their community. And what they've also done is develop a much broader base of collaborators, organizations with whom they can work. And they're now working with other organizations, such as the YMCA, who really want to provide a range of services to young people who are at risk in their communities.

[Host] Rebecca Rothbard, Research Assistant with the Denver Public Health Department.

[Rebecca Rothbard] The project I'm working with at Denver Health is an integrated project between three separate clinics. We have integrated a screening service for new methadone-intake clients where we're able to offer them STD, HIV, hepatitis C screening services, hepatitis vaccinations, tuberculosis testing, and methadone-replacement services.

[Host] Ann Robbins, Manager of the HIV STD Prevention and Care Program at the State of Texas Health Department.

[Ann Robbins] When programs are isolated or siloed, they run the risk --when times are good, they're really, really great. And when times are hard, we face the elimination of entire streams of service to our clients. Integration helps assure that that doesn't happen.

[Host] Julie Scofield, Executive Director of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors.

[Julie Scofield] Generally, clients show up with multiple concerns and it doesn't make any sense to make people go to several different locations for services. I think we have all really acknowledged the importance of trying to provide one-stop shopping. And I think sometimes it's just the rules and regs of our funding streams that often get in the way of our ability to do that.

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