According to the US Census Bureau, there are approximately 7,000 children under the age of eighteen living in Greene County, PA. Much like the adult population in the county, Greene County’s youth needs unique healthcare that will cure their ailments and prepare them for a bright future. That is where places like Cornerstone Care’s Pediatric division come into the picture. They give Greene County’s children a running start at life.
For those unfamiliar with Cornerstone Care, it is a local health care system with eleven locations across southwestern Pennsylvania. Cornerstone Care provides a wide range of medical care, and their pediatric clinics are one of the most popular elements of their practice. Cornerstone Care has two pediatric clinic facilities, one in Washington, PA and another within Greene County’s borders, located in Waynesburg, PA. Cornerstone Care is also a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), meaning that the clinic is able to care for all patients, regardless of external factors that might inhibit a patient’s ability to receive treatment, such as ability to pay, a lack of health insurance, or socioeconomic status.
This mission of treating those who need care regardless of their payment factors has allowed Cornerstone Care to partner with world-class pediatric physicians like Dr. Edward Foley, MD, who has been actively practicing pediatric medicine since 1976. Originally from the Philadelphia region, Dr. Foley is the main physician at the Community Health Center of Washington, as well as Cornerstone Care’s Chief Medical Officer. While he originally started in private practice, Dr. Foley merged with Cornerstone Care decades ago, mostly because their missions seemed to align.
“We take care of underprivileged kids. Kids on Medicaid, kids with no insurance, or whatnot, and I believe that it fits in Cornerstone Care’s health model,” Dr. Foley says. “Merging with Cornerstone was a great fit for us, and I love their philosophy.”
Back home in Greene County, Dr. Daniel Church, MD is the main physician at Pediatric Center of Waynesburg and is one of Greene County’s most popular pediatricians. He has been treating local patients for over twenty years and plans to continue serving the community for many more years to come. While he originally began his pediatric clinic as a private practice, he partnered with Cornerstone Care about ten years later.
While he originally joined Cornerstone Care to assist with the stresses surrounding the administrative side of his practice, Dr. Church soon realized that choosing to partner with the healthcare system not only made his life easier, but also directly aligned with his personal mission surrounding healthcare.
“That’s why I got into pediatrics and why I came back to work at a rural health center,” Dr. Church says. “I wanted to take care of people based on their healthcare needs, not based on anything else. That’s what Cornerstone Care is all about: taking care of patients, regardless of any other factors that may be involved.”
Dr. Church believes that another perk of working with Cornerstone Care is the ability to send patients to specialists if they need it, all within the same healthcare network. Whether a child needs emergency dental care, psychiatric counseling, or optical care, since Cornerstone Care has all of these specialties within Greene County’s borders, Dr. Church finds it much easier to treat patients holistically, rather than just one issue at a time.
Another amazing occurrence both Dr. Church and Dr. Foley have witnessed is the number of former patients who return to have the doctors treat their own children. Amanda Brown of Clarksville, PA is one of these generational patients. Growing up in Greene County, her parents chose Dr. Church as her pediatrician when she was a child, and now that she has a son of her own, Dr. Church has become his pediatrician as well. Her 16-month-old son, Clayton Moskal, has been a patient of Dr. Church since the day he came home from the hospital, and Amanda has had nothing but positive results with both Cornerstone Care and Dr. Church himself.
“I absolutely love Dr. Church!” Amanda says. “Not only is he local, but he remembers my family and I from when I was a kid. Between his medicinal expertise and his wonderful personality, we wouldn’t go anywhere else. Going with a pediatrician that’s familiar to me has been very comforting for me as a first-time parent.”
Like all areas of the medical field, the past year has been a huge challenge for Cornerstone Care’s pediatrics sector due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From changing regulations, to incorporating virtual visits, Cornerstone Care’s pediatric team has had to juggle taking care of everyday pediatric issues, as well as survive themselves in coronavirus era. Richard Rinehart, CEO of Cornerstone Care, believes that the biggest hurdle pediatric providers both in southwestern PA and across the country have to face is the delay in children’s immunization as a result of the pandemic.
“Since COVID-19 hit last year, we’ve seen an unfortunate trend in children falling behind on their routine, scheduled vaccinations,” Richard says. “Parents have been worried about taking their kids out in public with the virus, and as a result, kids are behind in getting their immunizations. Vaccines prevent so many terrible diseases that we often take for granted now days, and we worry that if children are falling behind with their shots that some of these terrible diseases might resurface.”
Richard and the providers at Cornerstone Care strongly urge parents to continue to vaccinate their children, even as the pandemic begins to subside. Although the current COVID-19 vaccines are not available to children, the best way to keep your child healthy is to go with their pediatrician’s recommended vaccinations and keep them up to date.
With Cornerstone Care at your child’s side, the future of Greene County’s children looks promising, hopeful, and most of all, healthy.