Dr Patricia Flanagan is a pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine. She is Professor and Vice Chair of Pediatrics at The W. Alpert Medical School at Brown University and Chief of Clinical Affairs at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. She is division director of the Adolescent Medicine Division in the department of Pediatrics. Her research, clinical work and teaching have focused on the unique needs of pregnant and parenting youth and their children. Pat has directed The Teens with Tots Clinic at Hasbro Children’s Hospital which is a multidisciplinary primary care program for teens and their children. She also leads The Rhode Island Alliance, a statewide teen pregnancy prevention coalition. Her extensive community work includes co-founding Nowell Academy, a YWCA charter high school for pregnant and parenting teens. As a clinical leader at Hasbro, she has facilitated the development of services and programs to address social determinants of health in the healthcare setting by: developing a medical-legal partnership at Hasbro, incorporating student advocates into the clinic setting to connect families with concrete needs in the community (Connect4Health), and integrating behavioral health into pediatric primary and subspecialty care. Dr Flanagan created and leads a one-month rotation called “Advocating for Child Health in The Community” which is a required learning experience for all pediatric interns. Pat is a local and national leader in the American Academy of Pediatrics, having served as RI Chapter president and presently serves as District Vice Chair. Dr Flanagan is a co-director of RI PCMH-Kids, a new state-wide multi-payer, multi-provider initiative for payment reform and primary medical home practice transformation. PCMH-Kids includes 20 practices collectively serving almost half the children in RI. Transformation of practices includes moving to team-based, data driven coordinated care that is family- and patient centered. Dr. Flanagan’s involvement and guidance in this initiative has enabled transformed practices to not only have the skills and habits of continuous quality improvement, but also accounts for improved outcomes such as family satisfaction, developmental screening, nutritional and activity counseling (with BMI monitoring), and decreasing patients’ use of emergency services.
