Portfolio

While large-scale events like Mission of Mercy provide critical access to care, they also reveal structural limits, particularly around clinical complexity, continuity, and sustainability. Community Vision Day was conceived to address those limits: a high-volume, community-focused clinic day hosted within the UPMC Vision Institute, leveraging existing infrastructure and supplies at little to no cost to patients regardless of insurance status.

The goal was to test whether relocating community care into a permanent clinical environment could improve quality, efficiency, and downstream follow-up—without sacrificing access.

As program manager for CORAP, I led the Community Vision Day pilot end-to-end, including:

• Strategic planning and operational design
• Cross-departmental coordination and leadership alignment across UPMC
• Clinical workflow design tailored for high patient volume
• Volunteer recruitment, onboarding, and coordination
• Integration of insurance counseling and referral pathways
• Real-time operations, patient flow management, and issue resolution
• Post-event evaluation using patient and volunteer feedback

Operational success required buy-in from nearly every functional area of the Vision Institute, including physicians, advanced practice providers, technicians, opticians, security, concierge staff, translators, and community partners.

Community Vision Day represents a shift from episodic charity care toward sustainable, system-embedded access models. This initiative reflects my approach as a program leader: listening to feedback, recognizing structural limits, and designing care models that balance scale, dignity, and clinical excellence.

Based on this pilot, CORAP plans to transition Community Vision Day into a quarterly program beginning in 2026.

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Learning & Program Evolution

Execution & Operations

The pilot event mobilized 75+ volunteers, including:

• Ophthalmologists and PAs
• Students and ophthalmic technicians
• Translators and security staff
• Opticians
• Representatives from UPMC Health Plan, SNAP, CORE, and PHAN

Despite higher-than-expected demand—over 200 patients walking in or preregistering—the clinic successfully served 135 patients over the course of the event.

Patients represented a broad age range, from children to older adults, and most were uninsured or underinsured residents of nearby communities.

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Clinical Complexity & Patient Need

Community Vision Day surfaced the depth of unmet ophthalmic need in the region. Patients presented with:

• Glaucoma
• Diabetic retinopathy
• Cataracts
• Dry eye disease
• Refractive error
• A rare case of cone-rod dystrophy

By hosting the event within the Vision Institute, providers had immediate access to diagnostic tools, clinical supplies, and referral systems—allowing for higher-quality evaluation and care than would be possible in a temporary pop-up setting.

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Continuity of Care & Equity

A core design principle of Community Vision Day was continuity, not just access.

The event integrated:

• Insurance counseling
• Referral pathways for specialty follow-up
• Connections to ongoing care within the UPMC system

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Metrics & Outcomes

• 135 patients served, including 15 children
• Majority uninsured and from the surrounding neighborhoods
• High clinical complexity managed safely and effectively
• Strong volunteer engagement and cross-departmental collaboration
• Positive patient and volunteer feedback

The pilot validated:

• Significant community demand
• Clinical appropriateness of a clinic-based access model
• Operational feasibility with the right planning and leadership

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