Community health center

An NHS health centre in the United Kingdom (Murphy Philipps Architects)

A healthcare center, health center, or community health center is one of a network of clinics staffed by a group of general practitioners and nurses providing healthcare services to people in a certain area. Typical services covered are family practice and dental care, but some clinics have expanded greatly and can include internal medicine, pediatric, women’s care, family planning, pharmacy, optometry, lab, and more. In countries with universal healthcare, most people use the healthcare centers. In countries without universal healthcare, the clients include the uninsured, underinsured, low-income or those living in areas where little access to primary health care is available.

Community health centres by country

Canada

Community Health Centers (CHCs) have existed in Ontario for more than 40 years.[1] Most CHC's consist of an interdisciplinary team of health care providers using electronic health records.[1]

In Quebec, local community services centres known by their French acronym, CLSC, offer routine health and social services, including consultations with general practitioners with and without an appointment.[2]

China

In China there are, as of 2011, 32,812 community health centers and 37,374 township health centers.[3]

United Kingdom

Lord Dawson of Penn was commissioned by Lord Addison to produce a report on "schemes requisite for the systematised provision of such forms of medical and allied services as should... be available for the inhabitants of a given area". The Interim Report on the Future Provision of Medical and Allied Services[4] was produced in 1920, though no further report ever appeared. The report laid down detailed plans for a network of Primary and Secondary Health Centres, together with detailed architectural drawings of different sorts of centres. By 1939 the term health centre was widely used to refer to new buildings housing local health authority services.[5] The Dawson report was very influential in debates about the National Health Service when it was set up in 1948, but few centres were built because "it was not practicable for local authorities to establish health centres without the full compliance of general practitioners" - which was not forthcoming. Far more attention and resources were devoted to hospital services than to primary care. From 1948 to 1974 local authorities were responsible for the building of health centres.

A well known centre was opened at Woodberry Down in October 1952.[6] It had provision for 6 GPs, 2 dentists, a pharmacist and two nurses. It cost about £163,000, which included the cost of a day nursery and child guidance clinic. This was regarded as extravagant and used as an excuse by critics for not building more. Harlow, where 4 centres were built by the new town corporation, was the only community in Britain served exclusively by doctors working from health centres.[7]

The few centres that were built "functioned as isolated islands in a sea of General Practitioners generally indifferent to their success". There were later calls to establish a network of centres to include not only GPs but also dentists and diagnostic facilities.[8] In 1965 there were only 30 health centres in England and Wales, and 3 in Scotland. By 1974 there were 566 in England, 29 in Wales and 59 in Scotland.[9] After the NHS Re-organisation Act 1973, responsibility for promoting health centres was transferred to Area Health Authorities and there were renewed calls to establish more Health Centres.[10] It was suggested that these centres could arrange alternative medical care for patients "when their doctor is off duty, or for emergency calls when he is engaged elsewhere".[11]

Lord Darzi set up a network of Polyclinics in England when he was a minister in 2008. These clinics had some features in common with earlier proposals for health centres, but shared with them considerable resistance from GPs.

United States

Community Health Centers (CHCs) in the U.S. are neighborhood health centers generally serving Medically Underserved Areas (MUAs) which includes persons who are uninsured, underinsured, low-income or those living in areas where little access to primary health care is available. Largely federally and locally funded, some health clinics are surprisingly modernized with new equipment and electronic medical records. In 2006, the National Association of Community Health Centers implemented a model for offering free, rapid HIV testing to all patients between the ages of 13 and 64 during routine primary medical and dental care visits.[12]

Medically Underserved Areas/Populations are areas or populations designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration, or HRSA as having: too few primary care providers, high infant mortality, high poverty and/or high elderly population. Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) are designated by HRSA as having shortages of primary medical care, dental or mental health providers and may be geographic (a county or service area), demographic (low income population) or institutional (comprehensive health center, federally qualified health center or other public facility).

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Association of Ontario Health Centres". Association of Ontario Health Centres. 2013-09-24. Retrieved 2013-09-24.
  2. ↑ "Local Community Services Centres (CLSCs)". Santé Montréal Portal. Gouvernement du Québec. 2014. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  3. ↑ "Statistical Communiqué on the 2011 National Economic and Social Development". stats.gov.cn. National Bureau of Statistics of China. 2012-02-22. Retrieved 2012-09-05.
  4. ↑ "Interim Report on the Future Provision of Medical and Allied Services 1920 (Lord Dawson of Penn)". Socialist Health Association. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  5. ↑ Webster, Charles (1988). The Health Services Since the War. London: HMSO. p. 380. ISBN 0116309423.
  6. ↑ "Woodberry Down Health Centre". British Medical Journal 1952 (2): 879. 18 October 1952.
  7. ↑ Webster, Charles (1988). The Health Services Since the War. London: HMSO. p. 386. ISBN 0116309423.
  8. ↑ "The Case for Health Centres". Socialist Health Association. 1964. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  9. ↑ Webster, Charles (1998). The National Health Service A Political History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 131. ISBN 0192892967.
  10. ↑ "Health Centres the Next Step". Socialist Health Centres. 1975. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  11. ↑ "Health Centres the Next Step 1975". March 10, 1975. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
  12. ↑ "Community Health Centers Integrate Rapid HIV Screening Into Routine Primary Care, Leading to Significant Increases in Testing Rates". Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 2013-05-08. Retrieved 2013-05-10.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Health centres.