Easy Access

A healthcare advocate creates easy access to health resources with a new app.

Sheri Booker
Writer

Photography Provided by
BEMORE Photography 
http://www.bemorephotography.org

“If people have smart phones then they should have universal healthcare,” says Phylicia Porter, the brains behind Opt Health. The free mobile app will provide users with healthcare resources in the privacy of their own homes. “Opt Health will make healthcare accessible just like water. It will be as easy as turning on the water faucet.” Or at least as easy as entering your zip code and finding healthcare resources in your neighborhood.

Porter is the founder of Optimal Public Health Solutions, a Maryland-based public health consulting company that provides strategic public health consulting for faith-based organizations, small businesses and Baltimore based community projects. As an advocate for health equity, Porter wishes to provide resources to nutrition and links within community to assist with health outcomes.

The classically trained opera singer was the first in her family to graduate from college with two bachelors’ of science degrees in molecular biology/biochemistry and bioinformatics/general biology specializing in the functional and comparative anatomy of animals. Although she spent many years singing with the Peabody Children’s Chorus, “I believe health is an indoctrinated right and not a privilege for a small few.”

Porter is involved with several community projects and works with the United Way but it’s her passion for healthcare that keeps her going.