How Can Community Health Centers (CHCs) Help Community Members Access Services

Who Do Community Health Centers Serve?
People without health insurance, people who receive Medicaid and Medicare benefits, day workers and people living in rural areas.

Community health centers provide care regardless of ability to pay. There are over 1,200 health center organizations with over 8,000 locations in urban and rural communities across the country.

What are the medical services offered by many of the Community Health Centers?
They offer a variety of primary health care and prevention for individuals and families. Services include adult and family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, dentistry, optometry, podiatry (foot care) and ear, nose and throat (ENT). And there are also additional services such as social support services, HIV testing and counseling, nutritional counseling and education services to health.

Most community clinics have information in different languages for its members about services they offer and also programs of health education. Low-income families have the advantage of physical examinations and vaccinations or no cost or a very minimum out of pocket payment based on their income level.

Community members will benefit from receiving information about the multi-services that community health centers offer. Many of the community members end up going to the CHCs because their relative or neighbor told them about the services.
Unfortunately, there are many other underserved and low-income families not accessing these services. Sometimes written and posters information is not enough to get the word out there about services. On a study conducted a few years ago by a media company, Hispanics and Asian communities receive most of their information through radio and television. Perhaps these can be some community outreach strategies that CHCs may try to utilize and implement.

Community members need to know that they do not need to be afraid to visit local health centers and ask for services and programs offer to the community. The reason for these health centers to exist, is to help community members obtain medical services at low cost or no cost, and those receiving Medicaid and Medicare benefits.


Author
Helen E. Dao is the President and CEO at her company Dao Management Consulting Services, Inc. (www.daoconsultingservices.com) Helen has been working on cultural diversity and public health strategies development for 11 years. You can follow her on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/#!/daoconsulting and @ her blog http://daoconsultingservices.blogspot.com/


_____________________________________________________
Source: National Association Community Health Centers
http://www.nachc.org/default.cfm

Community Health Centers & Collaborating Partnerships

I was thinking this morning on new ways to work with community health centers on addressing health care disparities among minority groups.  I have talked with some leaders from community health centers across the country on their initiatives to make a change.  Pretty often the response is "we have the idea and perhaps the internal structure, however, we do not have the sufficient funding to help us work on it"  In my opinion, there is funding, however, community health centers should consider creating stronger community partnerships in order to develop a stronger work plan and strategies of implementation.  Here are a few tips for community health centers to building strong and sustainable collaborating partnerships:

• Identify potential partners that have the same or similar mission, goals, and need.
• Identify a liaison between your CHCs and the collaborating partner(s).
• If CHCs  or any other organizations approached a potential granter/foundation as a team of community partnerships working on the same goals, this can enhance the chances of getting funding (I heard this from the Ford Foundation of NJ at a conference in the Fall 2010)
• Identify one focus area that both organizations are passionate to work on, such as health care disparities in the Hispanic or Muslim communities.
• Have funding to launch your project.
• Project sustainability needs to begin at the start of the project.
• Use series of changes (small tests) to track success and challenges.
• Start project on a small region(s) then be ready to spread either regionally, statewide, or nationally, if required or needed.
• Have the project coordinator keep a log of all project details for future replication.
• Any project model should be created with the idea of being adaptable or replicated into other communities.
• Look at already tested and proven models that you believe can be adaptable into your project.  
• Have ongoing communication with collaborating partners and keep documentation.
• If funding is not sufficient, look into your internal structure and be creative in how to use existing services, staff, or project to enhance new project.

The list can go on and on, I just wanted to share a few tips and ask of you to continue adding to this list.

Best Regards,

Helen Dao, MHA
www.daoconsultingservices.com