When Dr. Zubair Latif, a family medicine physician with JPS Health Network, gains a new patient, he often gains a group: the parents, children, friends and neighbors of the initial person.
“It’s a whole community that we see on a daily basis,” he told a crowd of JPS and community leaders beneath a white tent and gray sky Dec. 7.
Latif is the medical director of the JPS South Campus Health Center. He’s worked with JPS for nearly two decades, and during that time he’s seen the health needs of the community outgrow the capacity of the clinic. He’s long wanted a new space, he said.
“And finally, today, we’re seeing that happen.”
Latif and dozens of others gathered near the intersection of Mesa Springs Drive and Granbury Road in Fort Worth to break ground at the site of the future Medical Home Southwest Tarrant. The ceremony was the second in two months for projects funded by the $800 million JPS bond program voters approved in 2018.
The first groundbreaking, for a new psychiatric emergency center, took place in October.
For many patients, a medical home serves as a one-stop-shop. Medical Home Southwest Tarrant will provide a slew of services beyond primary care: Diagnostic and laboratory services, behavioral health care, cancer care screenings, chronic disease management and a retail pharmacy, among others.
“When a person achieves and maintains good health, it has a positive impact not only on that patient, but on a family, on a neighborhood and on a community,” Joy Parker, vice president of operations and community health at JPS Health Network, told the crowd.
The offerings mimic those of Medical Home Northeast Tarrant, which opened its doors in Euless in 2018, but are also tailored to the needs of Southwest Fort Worth, JPS President and CEO Dr. Karen Duncan told the Report.
The selection of the location was informed partly by the Citizens Blue Ribbon Committee Report in 2018, she said. The committee identified Southwest Fort Worth as a community without adequate access to medical care. However, Duncan said, anyone can receive the services at the new medical home regardless of ZIP code.
Medical Home Southwest Tarrant will absorb JPS South Campus Health Center, Duncan said during the ceremony.
Byrne Construction Services, Post L Group, and SBL Architecture will build the roughly 39,000 square-foot, $37-million facility, which will begin construction in early 2023. The medical home and the psychiatric emergency center will be built concurrently and completed in 2024, Duncan told the Report.
Alexis Allison is the health reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Her position is supported by a grant from Texas Health Resources. Contact her at alexis.allison@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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