Jennifer Gonzalez-Broadt, MPAS, PA-C is a Physician Assistant with a certification of added qualification in Psychiatry through NCCPA. She provides addiction care to adolescents and adults at the Comprehensive Healthcare Opioid Treatment Program (OTP) and mental health for children and adolescents at Two Rivers Landing E&T in Yakima. She assisted with the initiation of buprenorphine therapy for OUD at the OTP, where only methadone was provided previously.
She has ties to the farmworker community in Yakima Valley, previously working in family medicine at Community Health of Central Washington’s Highland Clinic in Tieton. She hails from deep south Texas and her career also includes time working in skilled nursing facilities, Texas state tuberculosis management and internal medicine.
Her interest in Integrated Care is rooted in her passion that patients should be in charge of their health and advocates strongly for education of ‘easy to understand’ goals. The greater Yakima area has a disproportionate patient to prescriber ratio and many of her patients are not yet established with a Primary Care provider, or their provider has moved on to other opportunities and thus, patients feel left out of their medical decisions. This opportunity will not only improve Jennifer’s goals for her patients but also help involve all the other medical/community partners that can have a positive impact on each and every person served in Yakima and surrounding communities.
In five years, Jennifer would love to see all health partners in Yakima offer integrated care and have open collaboration with mental health and substance use specialists. One step to that goal would be for community medical providers to provide mental health and substance use treatment without stigma and meeting the patient where they are for best outcomes.