Four community health centers and one primary-care association will receive awards in recognition of their innovative approaches to primary care delivery and other initiatives that promote health and wellness in low-income communities.

The $20,000 awards are part of a National Summit on Community Health Center Lending and Innovation, a two-day event taking place in Metropolitan Detroit next month.

The summit will focus on the advancement of health care innovation in low-income neighborhoods by facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration among two unfamiliar partners: the health care centers and the community development financial institutions. 

The Kresge Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, Opportunity Finance Network, and NCB Capital Impact are co-sponsors of the event.

As a means of stimulating discussion about innovation in community-based health care, Kresge provided funding for the awards. The organizations receiving the awards will showcase their innovations through a case-study presentation and discussion at the summit.

About 70 community health centers and primary-care associations took part in a request-for-proposals process. The awards will go to a geographically diverse group of organizations that provide a wide range of services.

They include:

• Dorchester House Multi-Service Center of Dorchester, Mass., which developed a “fiscal health” assessment tool aimed at improving the financial outcomes of lower-income community members who receive medical and other services at the health center.
• Colorado Coalition for the Homeless of Denver, which established an integrated health center co-located with permanent supportive housing to provide better primary care to homeless and at-risk families.  
• Hidalgo Medical Services of Lordsburg, N.M., which runs a comprehensive rural health care-workforce development program, designed to address a shortage of health professionals.
• Maple City Health Care Center of Goshen, Ind., which offers an alternative payment model allowing patients to earn by volunteering and having their accounts credited.
• North Carolina Community Health Center Association of Raleigh, N.C., which employs medical-legal partnerships to address patients’ health and economic stability.  

Summit participants will include philanthropic and other funding organizations, community development finance institutions (or CDFIs), community health centers, the San Francisco and Detroit Federal Reserve Banks, primary-care associations, National Association of Community Health Centers, and other organizations interested in new approaches in health care delivery and addressing the social determinants of health.

Historically, few CDFIs have committed significant lending to community health centers. Recently, however, several have begun to recognize the important work of these health centers and the opportunity to support their work through financing facility projects.

Beyond facility lending, collaborations between CDFIs and health centers present opportunities for both to go beyond their respective core capabilities – financing and primary care – and extend their reach and impact on community health.

Kresge’s participation in the summit is led by its Social Investment Practice and Health Program, which hope to increase capacity within the CDFI market to lend to health centers and identify replicable models of integrated health and other community service.