‘Offering patients continuity of care, working with same team’

“What do you mean, you’ve never heard of us?” I asked my nurse in recovery after undergoing open-heart surgery to repair a valve problem in December 2020.

Admittedly, I was a bit groggy after the sedation wore off. I wasn’t trying to be rude. But I was surprised that my nurse didn’t know about where I worked at Community Health Centers of Lane County, a nonprofit health center, operated by Lane County Health & Human Services.

How could 19 out of 20 nurses (yes, I kept count) not know about the services we offered?
Since then, I keep asking everybody I meet in healthcare. More often than not, I get the same answer: “CHC? Nope, never heard of you.”

Yet, we’ve been operating since 2004 in Eugene and Springfield, dedicated to serving our communities.

Today, we take care of more than 25,000 patients. They certainly know us, and their families know us. And, somehow, we’re not a household name, which kind of breaks my heart (the same one fixed in 2020).

We don’t have big flashy billboards. There are no signs in the airport, greeting arrivals and showing off our newest doctors. Sure, we do community engagement, going to events such as Willamalane’s Children’s Celebration, Cottage Grove’s Spirit of Bohemia Mining Days, Eugene Pride, Juneteenth and the Oregon Asian Celebration. It’s always a pleasure to meet people on the ground and shake some hands. But, darn it, folks I meet still don’t know what we do.

Now, we have eight clinics in Eugene, Springfield and Cottage Grove, and we’ve developed a mobile outreach clinic to support people who have a hard time getting to us. Our services include adult and pediatric primary care, behavioral health and dental hygiene services. We’re in direct partnership with Lane County Behavioral Health and the Lane County Treatment Center, and we have indirect partnerships with clinics and social service agencies in the area.

And we’re not alone. We’re part of a much larger community. Community Health Centers started in 1965 with just two clinics – one each in Boston and Mississippi. With broad, consistent bipartisan support, there are now more than 1,500 organizations operating Community Health Centers in all 50 states, every U.S. territory and D.C. Collectively, we serve more than 32.5 million patients each year, with a mission to provide care to all patients, regardless of ability to pay.

The Community Health Centers prove that effective healthcare policy can transcend political divisions, delivering essential care to the community, while reducing systemwide costs. For decades, bipartisan members of Congress have supported health centers because of our record of success. We’re a big part of the backbone of the nation’s primary care system. And we know that we can save the system money by addressing chronic disease and reducing emergency room and hospital visits, while offering patients continuity of care by working with the same healthcare team.

Health centers demonstrate that when we focus on what works, we can build programs that truly serve the public good.

In addition to basic healthcare issues – sore throats, diabetes, asthma, back pain – we pride ourselves on looking beyond the medical charts with our patients to prevent illness and address factors that may cause poor health. Oftentimes, this means connecting our patients with community partners to address challenges, such as poverty, homelessness and unemployment, or substance use and mental illness, and access to healthy food.

The people I work with – the front desk, the call center, the administrative professionals, the nurses and medical assistants, clinical pharmacists and the clinicians of all stripes – come in every day driven by mission. They show up in a way that can only be described as awe-inspiring. I see them go above and beyond for our patients, getting to know them over years of care, and working to make sure that everybody is seen with the dignity and respect we all deserve.

Truly, I’m humbled by the more than 200 employees that make up our team.

Tomorrow ends National Health Center Week – our 60th anniversary – recognized by Congress year after year. So, if you’ve never heard of us, that’s OK – now you have! We’re here and we’ll keep showing up. We believe everyone deserves care they can count on, and we’re proud to be Lane County’s best-kept secret.