Statement of Need:

1. The New Kensington Family Health Center conventional office layout from 2001 poses serious challenges for staff to deliver primary care based in a Medical Home Model whole person treatment.

2. The current location is not handicapped accessible.

3. The waiting room overflows several times per week. People are standing outside the building, even in the winter, or in the hallway of this re-purposed elementary school building.

4. The current registration area does not provide appropriate confidentiality for patients or security for staff.

5. Team Care: Collaborative interventions that allow for effective workflow among the multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, social workers, pharmacists, and psychiatrist are hampered by a lack of workspace.

6. Group Visits: Improved patient outcomes for chronic diseases have been demonstrated from group visits. The current layout prohibits this.

7. Integrated Psychiatry and Behavioral Health: Larger family consultation/counseling rooms are needed to implement pediatric and family behavioral health care. There is no space for the behavioral health case manager.

8. The Medication–Assisted Treatment Program for Opioid Use Disorder has no space for social workers.

9. Successful recruitment and training of Future Family Physicians: improves office space will help attract top candidates for the nationally ranked UPMC St. Margaret Family Practice Residency Program; nearly 50% of graduating residents practice in southwestern Pennsylvania.

10. An inability to accommodate partnering agencies such as Westmoreland County Addiction Services and Pittsburgh Action Against Rape. These agencies have offered to place onsite counselors at the FHC but there is currently no space for this.