PBN 2020 Leaders & Achievers Awards
Merrill R. Thomas | CEO and president, Providence Community Health Centers
MERRILL R. THOMAS IS PASSIONATE about making sure all Providence residents have access to medical care, especially those who struggle to afford it.
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Thomas joined Providence Community Health Centers in 1997 and has served as the nonprofit’s CEO and president since 2001. The network of health centers, under Thomas’ guidance, grew from treating about 30,000 patients annually to approximately 60,000 today. About 90% of those patients are at or below the poverty line.
“The mission is what drives me,” Thomas said.
One of Thomas’ key goals is expanding the organization’s offerings beyond primary medical care to provide more-comprehensive health care to underserved communities. The organization has added dental and behavioral health services, as well as specialties like podiatry and dermatology over the years. Before Providence Community Health Centers, there weren’t any optometrists in Providence’s inner city.
“We have diabetics who need to have eye exams every year, we have kids who can’t see the board in school,” Thomas said. “By us doing optometry, we can do testing in the schools and get them glasses.”
By adding more services and facilities to meet growing demand, Thomas has tripled the organization’s operating budget to more than $70 million since coming on as CEO.
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed Thomas and staff to further expand the nonprofit’s offerings. The organization established the first COVID-19 testing site in inner-city Providence after seeing that most state-provided testing was happening in the suburbs.
“It took all of the resources of our agency to pull this off,” Thomas said. “Clinical people, [information technology], facilities, security had to be involved – almost every department in our agency. My staff really did a great job.”
Thomas isn’t stopping there. He’s trying to establish a new medical building in the city’s Olneyville section to treat 14,000 additional patients, as well as potentially add services for chronically sick and high-risk patients.
“We still haven’t completed serving all the people that need care,” Thomas said.
