Primary Care Center

Primary Care services are provided by an integrated partnership between the Charter Oak Health Center, a federally qualified health center and the Connecticut Children's Medical Center Division of General Pediatrics. Charter Oak Health Center at CCMC is a primary care practice that includes pediatric physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, a social worker, house staff and support staff. It provides a full range of health maintenance and acute services by appointment. Services are provided in a manner that strives to be family-centered, culturally effective, comprehensive, compassionate, and coordinated. In short, care is offered within a Medical Home model. On-call advice services are available at all times. The practice is a major teaching site for general pediatrics for the Pediatric Residency Program and the medical student teaching program of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Special primary care services include the Lead Program (under the direction of Hilda Slivka, MD), which is part of the Hartford Regional Lead Treatment Center. The Drug-Exposed Infants program (Pro-Kids), under the direction of Margaret McLaren, MD, provides enhanced primary care services for infants with intrauterine substance exposure. Telephone consultations are available to area physicians for both programs. The Center is a recognized site of the highly successful emergent literacy program, Reach Out and Read. Dr. Catherine Wiley provides direction for our site and serves as Medical Director of the Connecticut Reach Out and Read Statewide Expansion Project. This initiative aims to strengthen existing sites and assist the development of new sites across the State. The Center is also the site of the Health Outreach for Medical Equality (HOME) project, an outreach and care coordination demonstration model for Medicaid insured children and youth that is funded by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the Connecticut Children’s Fund and Connecticut Medicaid.