Celebrating National Health Center Week

Gary Bess Associates has the privilege of working with organizations that deliver a multitude of important services to their communities. Through these organizations, GBA has assisted projects ranging from retention of Native American languages to tobacco cessation initiatives. Our partnerships are immeasurably rewarding, which is why GBA celebrates our community health center partners this National Health Center Week.

Rooted in Communities

Since its founding in 1991, GBA has assisted community health centers reach their goals. Through these close relationships, we have witnessed the direct impact that health centers make in their patients’ quality of life. They breach health disparities throughout the country by putting patients first when providing affordable, quality health care services.

Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), a designation received from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), are required to be overseen by governing boards with patient majorities. This means that the goals and values of community health centers are actively shaped by the people they serve. With this designation, health centers must also conduct regular community needs assessments to determine service area needs, and improve their patient-centered services. By following a patient-centered approach, each health center delivers services that are adapted to the social, economic, ethnic, and linguistic needs of their patients. Despite the many guidelines that bind them, every health center is uniquely attuned to the patients they serve.

Direct Impact

Health Centers deliver services to all patients across the life cycle, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, and a graph from HRSA showing the large increase of people who are patients served at HRSA-Funded health center improve the lives of those in most need. Currently, their work impacts the lives of more than 27 million people across the country. They operate in the densest urban areas with high poverty rates, and some of the hardest to reach rural communities.

Every year, GBA helps health centers report their activities through the Uniform Data System, Budget Period Progress Reports, or Service Area Competitions, among other reporting requirements. We have closely followed the growth of dozens of health centers in the United States. Throughout these years, we have seen the increased need for the resources that they provide.

The number of patients seeking services from health centers has nearly tripled in the last two decades. This trend is expected to continue.

Get Connected with a Health Center

This National Health Center week celebrates the ways that health centers are rooted in communities. To learn more about the amazing work these community health centers are doing across the country, you can use the Find a Health Center tool to locate the closest health center to you.