InterWell: an integrated school-based primary care model

Abstract

The Intergenerational School is an innovative, high-performing public school in Cleveland, Ohio that fosters lifelong learning and individual and community health. Narrative approaches, information technology enhancements, art and music enrichments, and nature-based programming foster brain health in the service of purposeful and healthy living in the community. A newly designed integrated primary and public healthcare model, called InterWell, which is planned to be based in the school, has the potential to transform conceptions and practices of health. Interprofessional care supporting chronic disease self-management and transdisciplinary research are foundational to our model. Over the 13-year history of the school, barriers to acceptance of this model of education and health have been reduced and greater community support engendered, but challenges of priorities and funding remain. Can this new model help support human flourishing in this time of global ecological and social disruption?