REACH has a long history of serving East Vancouver, and much of what we do has been informed by the needs of our community. We are very proud to see REACH’s history featured in Caring for Our Children, a new account of the development of child health care in British Columbia.

The chapter on family medicine highlights how many approaches now considered essential to community health were built into REACH’s model from the beginning, including:

team-based, salaried care involving physicians, nursing, pharmacy, nutrition, counselling and health education;
preventive care and early child-development initiatives;
services designed in response to community needs;
outreach to youth and people facing barriers to care;
sustained involvement in training future family physicians; and
programs that evolved into enduring services, including REACH Dental, Pharmacy and the Multicultural Family Centre, part of the Health Equity and Engagement Department

From its earliest days in 1969, REACH provided preventive, integrated and accessible care. Many of the approaches, such as interdisciplinary teamwork, community outreach, removing barriers to care and developing services in response to local needs, remain central to REACH today -

‘REACH was constituted to provide team-based care from its inception, including in the core team several family physicians, a pediatrician (John Dean), a consulting psychiatrist, two public health nurses who functioned as nurse-practitioners before that discipline had been invented, a nutritionist, a clinical pharmacist and a health educator.’

We feel honoured to see the contributions of current and former REACH staff recognised as part of BC’s health care history.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to REACH alum Carol Herbert, MD, for this documented recognition and insight. Read more with us about the history of healthcare and community health here:

https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/childhealthcarehistorybc/chapter/family-medicine/