so smart! I’ve never had that done. And once that was done, she got to work,” Shanyn said. “And you know they really work as a team. Renesa has never once told me ‘no,’ because if she can’t do it, she will get help from one of the other ladies and they will work it out together.” For nearly an hour, Shanyn and I – both 45, both women of faith, both having struggled with addiction and family trauma, both having felt invisible except for our mistakes, both having nearly died as a result of attempts to self-medicate and both having received truly patient-centered care for the first time when we met as patients of the ONE Health team – cried tears of joy and relief as we realized that by simply surveying how we perceive our needs and helping us fulfill as many of those as possible, ONE Health might literally have saved our lives. At that moment, sitting together sharing our experience, I realized how her life story blessed me. The ONE Health team helps patients navigate what can be an exhausting maze of medical and social services necessary to create and maintain healthy lives. Shanyn might have said it best: “They take care of everything... medications, internal medicine appointments, specialist appointments, transportation – I mean everything!” They do it with a humility that allows them to partner with other community organizations to fully meet the needs of their clients whose life situations and needs are the most complex. The ONE Health team has an indepth understanding of how health is impacted by external factors and how mitigating or eliminating those factors creates space for a healthier life. ONE Health team members Megan Williams (left) and Susan Cooper (right), help complex care patients like Shanyn (center) make fewer trips to the emergency room and avoid inpatient hospital stays. regionalonehealth.org/foundation/change-a-life-donate-today/ 13
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