The Opportunity

Community Health Centers (CHCs) are a critical component of the health care safety net, providing primary care to an estimated 17 million people in over 6,000 settings annually. Federally-supported and locally organized, CHCs offer low-cost, culturally appropriate care in rural areas, the inner city, and a wide variety of other challenging settings to a largely indigent, isolated, and vulnerable population. As a result, CHCs improve access to care, reduce health disparities, and often treat more complex conditions than other primary care providers.

By design, CHCs are highly decentralized and community-centered. This has enabled widespread experimentation in the design and management of care, as well as many successful innovations. At the same time, this decentralized structure may limit communications among CHCs and inhibit their ability to share innovative technology, tools, methods, and approaches. Further, resource constraints necessitate innovative approaches while limiting CHC access to external experts.

Altarum Institute both recognizes the existing strengths of front-line CHCs, as well as the opportunity to further enlarge and expand on that success to reduce health inequity and improve health among the most vulnerable populations in the United States.

 Our Approach

Altarum worked with CHCs, communities, and experts to identify high performing, innovative CHCs and their breakthrough achievements. We identified opportunities for pilot programs with several CHCs in particular, and provided support and expertise in health systems operations, analysis and evaluation, technology, and other resources as needed. We worked collaboratively to learn and understand hard-earned success at the local level that we then shared at the regional and national levels.

We ensured the integrity of this effort by adopting the Community Health Center structure of user involvement in service delivery oversight. An advisory board, comprised of project participants and stakeholders, guided the program.  

What We Achieved

Through this effort, we improved care and enacted lasting changes among the CHCs in the pilot sites, turning good CHCs into great ones. Further, we helped identify a program of innovation and improvement that can be shared and implemented among CHCs nationwide. Our work enabled us to intelligently inform and shape federal policy for all CHCs in order to improve service delivery, efficiency, and effectiveness in this critical area of the health care safety net.