Overview
As the country’s health care delivery system adopts improvements necessitated by the drive for lower costs and higher quality, Community Health Centers must adapt, advance, and innovate. The Center for Community Health Innovation (CCHI) will work to identify, support, and replicate groundbreaking approaches to practice innovation, workforce development, and collaborative arrangements in the delivery of community-based health care.
The CCHI will evaluate existing best and promising practices and determine opportunities for value and scalability to further the health center mission. The goal of the CCHI is to prepare Community Health Centers for sustainable operational and clinical success, building on their unique, 50-plus-year history and commitment to equity and access.
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Our Mission
To serve as a catalyst for innovation at America’s Community Health Centers and to help advance future-focused approaches that increase access to affordable, equitable, quality health care for all.
The Center’s work is supported by a generous grant from the RCHN Community Health Foundation.
For more information, please contact us at innovation@nachc.org.
Announcements
NACHC Innovation Incubator 2024
NACHC’s Center for Community Health Innovation announces the Innovation Incubator 2024, powered by the global healthcare company Abbott. This program was first established by NACHC and Abbott in 2023 to support and guide health centers in using a human-centered design approach to improve health equity on a specific topic/area. This year the incubator will align with social drivers that are essential to good health – and the focus for 2024 is on improving health equity through access to nutritious food.
Application is closed on March 29th, 2024 Thank you for applying.
Mobile Units Innovation Challenge
Recently the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) and the Leon Lowenstein Family Foundation awarded six NACHC Organization Member health centers $10,000 each to support their mobile health programs. NACHC received nearly seven times as many applicants, so congratulations to our winners and thank you to all those that applied. An additional shoutout to Brockton Neighborhood Health Center for being selected as the “People’s Choice Award”. After almost 3,800 votes in a one-week competition, Brockton will receive an additional $2,500 to create marketing materials for their mobile unit.
- Kodiak Community Health Center (Kodiak, Alaska): adapted a 4-wheeler trailer to provide COVID-19 tests, vaccines, and treatment.
- Chiricahua Community Health Center (Benson, Arizona): the “Big Blue Bus” and “Hope on Wheels” provided childhood vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, also piloting at-home visits with the mobile unit.
- Golden Valley Health Centers (Merced, California): enhanced and sustained partnerships including with a local little league team for childhood vaccines and well-child checks during COVID-19.
- TrueCare (San Marcos, California): outfitted mobile units for hybrid telehealth services, a telehealth coordinator assisted with patient navigation, and are piloting at-home visits with the mobile unit.
- Brockton Neighborhood Health Center (Brockton, Massachusetts): Community Care-in-Reach program provides substance use and harm reduction services including advanced drug checking technology.
- United Neighborhood Health Services (Nashville, Tennessee): a multi-organization coalition provided COVID-19 tests and vaccines to people experiencing homelessness, achieved a higher vaccination rate in the homeless population than the general adult population.
