Inside HRSA - September 2007
 
  Photo of a printer  Printer-friendly September 2007 Inside HRSA (Acrobat/PDF)  
  In this Issue:    
 

Health Center Expansion Nears President's Goal, Duke Tells NACHC Members

DALLAS — HRSA Administrator Betty Duke thanked 2,000 health center executives and clinicians August 27 for joining with HRSA in a “heroic” effort to reach the goals of President Bush’s Health Centers Initiative.

She also announced grants worth $39 million under the President’s new High Poverty Counties Initiative. Duke said the grants will “stretch America’s health care safety net to places it’s never been.”

The HRSA administrator told attendees at a morning session at the National Association of Community Health Centers’ annual meeting that these are “exciting days to be in the health center movement, because we are—all of us—nearing the historic completion of the President’s Initiative. We can almost touch it!”

  

Dr. Duke presenting a check to Lil Anderson CEO of the Yellowstone City County Health Department.
Dr. Duke presenting a check to Lil Anderson, CEO of the Yellowstone (Mont.) City-County Health Department.

In the last five years, she noted, HRSA and its health center partners across America “have created more than 1,100 new and expanded access points across the country, moving us very, very close to the President’s original goal of 1,200 new sites.”

Since President Bush launched his initiative in 2001, the number of patients served at health center sites has increased by almost 50 percent. In 2006 the number of health center patients served topped the 15 million mark for the first time. Between 2001 and 2006, the number of patients treated at health centers increased by over 4.7 million, from 10.3 million patients in 2001 to 15 million last year.

“That’s almost a 50 percent increase in just five years—by any reckoning that’s a remarkable management achievement!” Duke said.

As the expansion unfolded, America’s neediest communities continued to be the prime users of health center services:

  • More than 92 percent of health center patients have incomes below 200 percent of the Federal poverty level.
  • Nearly 6 million patients are uninsured—up 50 percent from the 4 million uninsured patients that were treated in 2001.
  • And almost two-thirds (64 percent) of patients are from racial or ethnic minority groups.

The growth in patients coincided with a growth in the range of services health centers offer. “We are providing more comprehensive services than ever before,” Duke said.

In 2006, almost 2.6 million patients received dental services—a jump of more than 80 percent over the 1.4 million dental patients served in 2001—and 470,000 patients went to health centers for mental health care.

“That’s an increase of almost 170 percent over the 176,000 patients who received mental health care in 2001!” Duke told the crowd.

In announcing the High Poverty Counties grants, Duke said “they will give 300,000 people who live in some of the poorest, most remote areas of the country access to primary health care, many for the first time. That’s a great thing for them, and it’s a big step forward for America.”

“These grants are exactly the kind of work HRSA should be doing,” she told the audience.

The High Poverty Counties grants were not the only ones Duke announced in Dallas. She also released New Access Point grants worth $20 million, four Expanded Medical Capacity grants worth more than $1 million, and more than $31 million in grants to fund Health Information Technology projects at health centers and health center networks.

HRSA 25th Anniversary logo

Join Us in Celebrating 25 Years of Improving Health Care!

Back to top