North Carolina Health Centers Celebrate Innovations in Healthcare Across the State
August 8, 2016
Raleigh, NC – Over 50 events around North Carolina are planned as part of National Health Center Week (NHCW). The national campaign runs August 7-13th with the goal of raising awareness about the mission and accomplishments of North Carolina’s community health centers and those across the country over the course of more than five decades.
North Carolina’s community health centers play a vital role in our state’s healthcare safety net. They are innovators in healthcare delivery and feature a patient-centered medical home model that utilizes care teams and enabling services to help patients address their medical and social needs. Today, they play the following role in NC:
- Serve more than 450,000 patients (43% uninsured, 26% Medicaid, and 9% Medicare and 16% private insurance).
- Offer sites in 72 of North Carolina’s 100 counties.
- Provide medical, dental, pharmacy, behavioral health and substance abuse services.
- Participate in new delivery systems, such as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Accountability Care Organizations and a Health Center Controlled Network that analyzes patient data to improve care.
- Generate $157 million dollars in direct federal, state, and private grants to local communities and more than 3,100 jobs
Nationally, community health centers:
- Produce $24 billion in annual health system savings
- Reduce unnecessary hospitalizations and unnecessary visits to the emergency room
- Treat patients for a fraction of the average cost of one emergency room visit
- Generate $26.5 billion in economic activity and over 230,000 jobs
- Reduce infant mortality rates
Health centers not only prevent illness and foster wellness in the most challenging populations, they produce innovative solutions to the most pressing healthcare issues in their communities. In North Carolina, where our state has yet to expand Medicaid coverage to uninsured adults with incomes at or below $138% of the federal poverty level, community health centers remain one of the few healthcare providers willing to treat the uninsured. They reach beyond the walls of conventional medicine to address the factors that may cause sickness, such as lack of nutrition, mental illness, homelessness and addiction. Because of their long record of success in innovation, managing healthcare costs, and reducing chronic disease, leaders in Congress have declared health centers a model of care that offers a “bipartisan solution to the primary care access problems” facing our nation.
There are NHCW events scheduled across North Carolina and the country, including health fairs, press conferences, back-to-school drives, community breakfasts, patient appreciation events, free health screenings and dental cleanings, visits by Members of Congress and state officials and much more.
To learn more about NHCW and the listing of events please visit: www.healthcenterweek.org.
You can follow the conversation using #NHCW16 or #CHCsInnovate on Twitter.
