Community begets community.
Since 1987, Peninsula Community Health Services’ guiding principle – to see and value everyone who comes through our doors – has held true. We’ve built a network with our community partner agencies, shepherding our patients whenever additional help is needed. From beautifying the neighborhood with our first Community Mural to attending community events from Kids’ Day to Kitsap Pride to Veterans Stand Down and going to the public schools, local libraries, foodbanks, and Salvation Army to educate, listen and connect. Every patient has a voice; each story is unique and strengthens the mortar of our community’s building blocks.
The voices of our patients guide us and inspire us to provide quality care. Our Board of Directors is comprised of 51% PCHS patients, directly representing the needs of our community. Through our Board and outreach, we strive to understand our communities to best meet all their evolving needs.
Over the last thirty years we’ve ridden the waves and troughs of health care, expanding to the north, south, and east of our west Bremerton base. We heard our community’s need for dental and opened our doors to children and adults. We embraced the Affordable Care Act and, with the help of our team, decreased our uninsured rate from 57% to 8% in two years. We saw the need for balance between medical and mental health care and integrated our care model. By identifying primary care gaps with our shared patients with Kitsap Mental Health Services, we’ve expanded medical and dental services within their campus and become the first community health center in the country to open a primary dental care clinic within the campus of a community mental health campus. We’ve grown into neighboring Mason County with a primary care medical/dental/behavioral health/pharmacy clinic that opened in April 2017. In May 2017 we opened a satellite medical clinic in Kingston, a small town in an underserved corner of Kitsap County.
PCHS itself is a melting pot of cultures and languages, adept at connecting with our patients on their level. Each patient has a voice and PCHS is here to listen. #WeArePCHS
