Gaining a Better Understanding of Community and Migrant Health Center Board Chairs: A National Survey
Author: Samuels, Michael E.
Date Published: 1999
The Community Health Centers and Migrant Health Centers (CHC/MHC) serve as a primary care safety net for the nation's poor in both inner-city and rural areas. They incorporate the concepts of comprehensive and coordinated health services with continuity of care within a single institutional setting by providing integrated care including primary and preventive care services. The organization of comprehensive health care services within the same setting and administrative structure can also realize economies of scale and minimize unnecessary duplication of administrative tasks and medical services. In 1998, there were 634 CHC/MHCs in the United States, operating 1,980 health centers on a $2.2 billion budget serving 10.4 million patients, about 24 percent of the nation's indigent population. The patients are drawn principally from minority groups. CHC/MHCs are critical to access to health care by the nation's poor and underserved. The community board is a unique feature of Community and Migrant Health Centers. Its origins are in the original Office of Economic Opportunity Neighborhood Health Centers Program. The concept, authored by Tuft's University Medical School Professors, Jack Geiger and Count Gibson, was that there should be community control of health services delivery. That tradition continues with the requirement that CHC/MHC must have boards made up of at least 51% consumers and that they have the authority to hire and fire the Executive Director. While this concept has been in place for over thirty years there has been very little research done to assess their functioning and impact on the delivery of health care services
Date Published: 1999
The Community Health Centers and Migrant Health Centers (CHC/MHC) serve as a primary care safety net for the nation's poor in both inner-city and rural areas. They incorporate the concepts of comprehensive and coordinated health services with continuity of care within a single institutional setting by providing integrated care including primary and preventive care services. The organization of comprehensive health care services within the same setting and administrative structure can also realize economies of scale and minimize unnecessary duplication of administrative tasks and medical services. In 1998, there were 634 CHC/MHCs in the United States, operating 1,980 health centers on a $2.2 billion budget serving 10.4 million patients, about 24 percent of the nation's indigent population. The patients are drawn principally from minority groups. CHC/MHCs are critical to access to health care by the nation's poor and underserved. The community board is a unique feature of Community and Migrant Health Centers. Its origins are in the original Office of Economic Opportunity Neighborhood Health Centers Program. The concept, authored by Tuft's University Medical School Professors, Jack Geiger and Count Gibson, was that there should be community control of health services delivery. That tradition continues with the requirement that CHC/MHC must have boards made up of at least 51% consumers and that they have the authority to hire and fire the Executive Director. While this concept has been in place for over thirty years there has been very little research done to assess their functioning and impact on the delivery of health care services
