Center for Community Health Innovation

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.

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.

Meet CCHI’s Innovation Advisory Council

Announcements

InnovationEx 2023: Operationalizing and Sustaining Innovation for the Future

Date: Oct. 23, 2023

In-person event.

Make a lasting impact beyond this one-day event – at your organization, and as part of the larger community of health center innovators. To make the most of the InnovationEx we recommend you come in teams of two (2) and that you attend with a real-life innovation challenge from your organization in mind.

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.