Born out of the civil rights movement over 30 years ago, community-based health centers have become the backbone of the health care safety net and a leading example of how to provide culturally competent quality health care to low-income communities across the United States.
The following are proceedings from The Power of Community in Health: A Showcase of Community Health Center Advances, a conference held in Oakland, California on September 16-17, 2004.
At the conference over 250 people came together to celebrate the advancements of the community health center movement, to acknowledge the achievements of the health centers’ community board members, and discuss the future role of community-based health centers in this new millennium. We encourage you to browse through our web pages, where the proceedings can be viewed in sections.
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Now you find community health center leaders being able to talk about social change, social justice and community organizing, while being accountable to their accreditation bodies around immunization rates, pap smear rates, and HEDIS measures, and being quite ambidextrous to go from one conversation to the next without skipping a beat, somewhat seamlessly. — Dr. Robert K. Ross |
Download Section One (pages 1-17, 464 kb).
- Foreward: Mark D. Smith, MD, MBA, President and CEO of the California Healthcare Foundation
- Message from the U.S. Congressional Tri-Caucus
- Introduction
- Reflections on the Community Health Center Movement: Robert K. Ross, MD, President and CEO of The California Endowment
- Principles for Rebuilding the Health Care System: M. Treadwell, PhD, Director of the Community Voices Initiative, Center for Primary Care, Morehouse School of Medicine
- Day 1: Welcome and Opening Remarks
- Merrie Aipoalani, Member of the Board of Directors, Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center
- Connie Chang, Chair of the Board of Directors, Asian Health Services
- Sherry Hirota, CEO of Asian Health Services
- Jane García, MPH, CEO of La Clínica de La Raza
- Tom Van Coverden, President and CEO of the National Association of Community Health Centers
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The social justice element of community clinics cannot be realized unless we realize that getting social justice has to be done in the context of a business that works. —Sylvia Drew Ivie |
Download Section Two (pages 18-33, 292 kb).
- Session 1: Building Community Capacity: Hard Heads,
Soft Hearts
- Donn Ginoza, JD, Vice President, Board of Directors for Asian Health Services
- David Hayes-Bautista, PhD, Director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture and Professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine
- Jose Joél García, JD, CEO of Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center and Board Chair of the Alameda Health Consortium
- Sylvia Drew Ivie, JD, Executive Director of T.H.E. Clinic, Inc.
- Kauila Clark, MFA, Member of the Board of Directors of Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center
- Session 2: Building Community Leadership: Roundtable Discussions with Community Board Members and Leaders
- Dinner and Cultural Performance Honoring Community Board Members
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The actuarial finding is that there is not enormous undue risk, or for that matter, a tremendous amount of pent-up demand, with the exception of for preventive services [to insure all immigrant families]. That is a really powerful message that has not permeated the health care reform debate in the way that I think it needs to… — Dr. Sandra Hernández |
Download Section Three (pages 34-53, 340 kb)
- Day 2 : Welcome and Opening Remarks
- Opening Blessing: Lyle Kaloi, Member of the Board of Directors, Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center
- Martin Waukazoo, CEO of the Native American Health Centers
- Sam S. Shekar, MD, MPH, Associate Administrator, Bureau of Primary Health Care, Health Resources and Services Administration, and Assistant U.S. Surgeon General
- Session 1: Presentation of Community Voices Project’s Policy Paper “Covering All Residents: The Case for Immigrant Coverage in Health Reform”
- Luella J. Penserga, MPH, Project Director of The Community Voices Project
- Blue Ribbon Panel Responders
to Community Voices Policy Paper
- Sandra Hernández, MD, CEO, The San Francisco Foundation and Member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance
- Patricia A. Ford, Chair-Elect for the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
- Tanya Broder, JD, Staff Attorney and Policy Analyst of the National Immigration Law Center
- Ninez Ponce, PhD, Assistant Professor at UCLA’s Department of Health Services and Faculty Associate with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
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Because we spend so much on health care in this country, more than any other nation in the world by far, to spend that much money and to have 40 million Americans uninsured is a crime. —George C. Halvorson |
Download Section Four (pages 54-69, 280 kb)
- Keynote Speaker: George C. Halvorson, Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals
- Session 2: Community Health Centers
on the Leading Edge
- Raymond J. Baxter, PhD, Senior Vice President of Community Benefit, Kaiser Permanente
- Ralph Silber, MPH, Executive Director of the Alameda Health Consortium and CEO of the Community Health Center Network
- Ahmed Calvo, MD, MPH, FAAFP, Chief of the Clinical Quality Improvement Branch, Div. of Clinical Quality, Health Resources and Services Administration
- Warren Taylor, MD, Northern California Region's Medical Director for Chronic Conditions Management, Kaiser Permanente
- Ellen Friedman, MBA, Vice President of the Tides Foundation and Managing Director of the Community Clinics Initiative
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The dynamic of sharing information between the traditionalist and the western practitioners has opened the eyes of both sides to look at how better we can serve the community. —Kauila Clark |
Download Section Five (pages 70-88, 452 kb)
- Session 3: Recapturing Healthy
Traditions: Cultural Factors in Eliminating Health
Disparities
- Robert G. Robinson, DrPH, Associate Director for Program Development of the Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Carmela R. Castellano, Esq., CEO of the California Primary Care Association
- Kauila Clark, MFA, Member of the Board of Directors, Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center
- Richard P. Bettini, MPH, MA, CEO of the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center
- Integrating Spiritual, Family, Community, and Individual Well-Being: James Crouch, MPH, Executive Director of the California Rural Indian Health Board
- About the Speakers