Access to care: More primary care doctors available to county residents than elsewhere in Indiana

<p>County residents who get sick or need a check-up or physical have dozens of options for care.</p><p>They can travel to Greenwood, Whiteland or White River Township and go to clinics operated by Community Hospital South, Franciscan Health and Johnson Memorial Health.</p><p>They have access to multiple primary care physicians in Franklin through Johnson Memorial Health’s main campus or can go just north of County Line Road and visit two hospitals that serve the south side. Or they can walk into a pharmacy and get seen by a medical professional who staff multiple pharmacy and grocery store clinics in the area.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery<p>Johnson County is growing and as the county has grown, three major hospital chains have made it part of their missions to make sure that county residents who need a doctor for preventative care or for other sickness have access to a primary care physician through more partnered clinics and micro hospitals.</p><p>The efforts of the three hospital chains have put the county above statewide and national averages for access to a primary care physician.</p><p>County residents have access to 81.6 primary care doctors, per 100,000 residents, according to rankings from the U.S. News and World Report.</p><p>The national average is 75.6 doctors and overall, Indiana fares worse, with 66.9 doctors per 100,000 residents. Johnson County did score slightly lower than their peer group with the peer data citing that 82.5 primary care doctors are available in similar communities to Johnson County, the rankings said.</p><p>Johnson Memorial Health has worked to make more primary care physicians available to the public, but county residents also have more entry points to see a doctor, such as utilizing walk in clinics, micro hospitals and in some cases, health care on-site at their job, said Dr. David Dunkle, CEO of Johnson Memorial Health.</p><p>“There are more access points, that is medicine as a whole,” Dunkle said. “You used to have to used to go to the hospital and you would have one family doctor in town.”</p><p>All of the hospitals have worked to give more residents access to primary care physicians in Johnson County.</p><p>Johnson Memorial Health is actively recruiting primary care providers and have opened clinics in the middle and northern part of the county in recent years to give residents more access to care, Dunkle said.</p><p>Franciscan Health unveiled a new facility in November in White River Township that has 20 physician offices, although all of the doctors are not primary care providers. Community Health Network, which has a hospital just north of County Line Road, has worked with Johnson Memorial Health to bring satellite clinics and has community clinics in pharmacies in Greenwood.</p><p>Franciscan Health Indianapolis, which serves central Indiana, operates a hospital on the southside and has moved to offer more primary care services, said Katie Hill-Johnson, administrative director for community health improvement for Franciscan Health.</p><p>Johnson County is growing and healthcare follows where the population goes. And rural providers such as Wind Rose Health, which has clinics in Franklin and Trafalgar in Johnson County, has helped more residents have access to primary care, she said.</p><p>“I think it is one of those things that happens in time,” Hill-Johnson said. “What I see is good news, there are so many providers in the area.”</p><p>Community Health Network has multiple hospitals in the Indianapolis area. About a decade ago, hospital administrators decided they would make a concentrated effort to expand in Johnson County, said Rob Campbell, director of business development of Community Hospital South.</p><p>The population of Johnson County is growing to support more primary care physicians, but the hospital is also growing all its campuses, which has translated to more doctors available to Johnson County residents, Campbell said.</p><p>“We want it to be delivered locally in the community to those patients, that is why there is so much access,” he said.</p><p>While Johnson County residents have access to more care, the county is scoring lower on overall health, according to the rankings.</p><p>The county slotted 140 places lower than in 2018. The county scored worse this year in categories such as community vitality, equity, economy and housing. In the food and nutrition section, the county was significantly worse than last year.</p><p>Indiana overall is an unhealthy state when compared to other states and has poor rankings for smoking, obesity and diabetes, Dunkle said.</p><p>Access to primary care physicians is one step that could help improve some of those rankings, Hill-Johnson said.</p><p>If patients have access to and are seeing primary care physicians, those physicians are doing preventative care, the administrators said.</p><p>“We want people to see their primary care physicians from a preventative perspective,” Campbell said.</p>[sc:pullout-title pullout-title="At a glance" ][sc:pullout-text-begin]<p>County residents have access to more primary care physicians than most people in the state and nation.</p><p>Here is a look at the numbers from the U.S. News and World Report Health Rankings.</p><p><strong>81.6</strong> doctors per 100,000 residents: Johnson County’s access to primary care physicians.</p><p><strong>75.6</strong> doctors per 100,000 residents: National overage of access to primary care physicians.</p><p><strong>66.9</strong> doctors per 100,000 residents: State average of access to primary care physicians</p><p><strong>82.5</strong> doctors per 100,000 residents: Peer group average of access to primary care physicians</p>[sc:pullout-text-end]