FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J. (Aug. 10, 2021) — BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a leading global medical technology company, along with Direct Relief and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC), is celebrating National Health Center Week (August 8-14) by honoring the six community health centers in the U.S. who earned this year’s Innovations in Care Award, recognizing their success in helping vulnerable patients manage complex chronic diseases and improve overall health.
- Community health centers were established in the United States during the 1960s civil rights movement and are rooted in medically underserved communities.
- Community health centers serve ~30 million patients annually.
- 60% of community health center patients in the U.S. represent racial and ethnic minority groups and 72% have family incomes at or below the poverty level.
- Patients served by health centers tend to experience fewer disparities in healthcare outcomes, even after taking into consideration socio-economic and demographic factors.
- According to NACHC, uninsured people who live near a health center are less likely to have an unmet medical need and are less likely to visit the emergency room or have a hospital stay. Communities with a health center also experience lower infant mortality rates.
Each Innovations in Care Award winner received a $150,000 grant to expand their successful programs for providing quality care to at-risk populations. Their innovative approaches, detailed below, include offering culturally sensitive, team-based care; implementing new services like telehealth, which help patients overcome lack of transportation and other barriers to care; and providing education and counseling to patients in their native language, to ensure they understand how to take their medications safely.
The $900,000 in grant awards was provided through the BD Helping Build Healthy Communities™ initiative – a unique public-private partnership started in 2013, funded by BD and the BD Foundation, and implemented by Direct Relief and NACHC. Through the year 2023, BD and the BD Foundation have committed to invest $22.8 million in this initiative, furthering the company’s commitment to improving health equity by expanding access to care in under-resourced and under-represented communities. To date, the initiative has issued 48 grants to health centers in 20 states and has donated more than 38 million insulin syringes and pen needles to more than 1,300 community health centers and free and charitable clinics nationwide.
“Racial and ethnic minorities in the United States are less likely to receive preventive health services, experience worse health outcomes for certain conditions, and are statistically more likely to face barriers that make it more difficult to access quality care,” said BD Chairman, CEO and President Tom Polen. “Social investments in community health centers are one of the most effective ways to expand quality care to underserved patients in the United States, including racial and ethnic minorities, because these centers are located in high-need areas, are open to all regardless of their ability to pay, and have a well-documented history of delivering culturally relevant care to meet the special needs and priorities of their communities.”
The following award-winners were selected with guidance from a national panel of clinical pharmacists in the field of Medication Therapy Management:
- Healthnet in Indianapolis, Indiana is using its grant funding to provide expanded pharmacist visits and referral services for high-risk patients with diabetes or pre-diabetes, including proactive assessments to identify and address barriers to care, like lack of food or transportation.
- Northeast Valley Health Corporation in San Fernando, California is using its grant funding to ensure high-risk Latinx patients meet with a clinical pharmacist for medication reconciliation and adherence counseling, and to offer these patients a social determinants of health (SDOH) assessment. Funding is also enabling a bilingual patient navigator to link patients with social services that address needs identified in the SDOH assessments.
- Share Our Selves in Costa Mesa, California is using its grant funding to enable patients living in shelters, particularly those who face multiple chronic conditions and take multiple, complex medications, to receive individualized pharmacist counseling via telehealth technology.
- The University of Minnesota Community-University Health Care Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota is using its funding to expand mobile health services for community members with diabetes, hypertension and depression, and for those at high risk of poor outcomes related to COVID-19.
- Wahiawa Center for Community Health in Wahiawa, Hawaii is using its grant funding to support an integrated care team and care model to address chronic disease, particularly within Asian and Pacific Islander communities. This team approach seeks to improve medication adherence and to prevent health complications that are associated with chronic disease and cultural, social, economic and environmental challenges like poor health literacy and lack of food and housing.
- Zufall Health Center in Dover, New Jersey is using its grant funding to expand home monitoring care for at-risk patients who do not have access to equipment and supplies like blood glucose kits and blood pressure cuffs. Funding is also being used to deploy a dedicated care team that will tailor clinical interventions to meet the needs of each patient, and to support patients with education and online assistance in multiple languages, including Spanish.
"Direct Relief is privileged to work with NACHC and take part in this generous endeavor by BD to identify and reward community health centers whose staff are deeply committed to improving the health and lives of people with challenging health conditions," said Thomas Tighe, Direct Relief president and CEO.
"Health centers are innovators, healers and problem-solvers who reach beyond the walls of the conventional health care delivery system to not only prevent illness, but to address the causes of it in special populations — such as the homeless, the poor, agricultural and migrant workers, residents of public housing, those with limited English proficiency, and people living in rural areas,” said Tom Van Coverden, president & CEO at NACHC. “Private funding partnerships like this one are critical to putting health center public health innovations into action and ensuring health equity in hard-to-reach communities.”
For more information about the 2020 BD Helping Build Healthy Communities awardees, visit www.directrelief.org/bdhbhc.
About BD
BD is one of the largest global medical technology companies in the world and is advancing the world of health by improving medical discovery, diagnostics and the delivery of care. The company supports the heroes on the frontlines of health care by developing innovative technology, services and solutions that help advance both clinical therapy for patients and clinical process for health care providers. BD and its 70,000 employees have a passion and commitment to help enhance the safety and efficiency of clinicians' care delivery process, enable laboratory scientists to accurately detect disease and advance researchers' capabilities to develop the next generation of diagnostics and therapeutics. BD has a presence in virtually every country and partners with organizations around the world to address some of the most challenging global health issues. By working in close collaboration with customers, BD can help enhance outcomes, lower costs, increase efficiencies, improve safety and expand access to health care. For more information on BD, please visit bd.com or connect with us on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/bd1/ and Twitter @BDandCo.
About Direct Relief
A humanitarian organization committed to improving the health and lives of people affected by poverty and emergencies, Direct Relief delivers lifesaving medical resources throughout the U.S. and world to communities in need—without regard to politics, religion, or ability to pay. For more information, visit https://www.DirectRelief.org.
About NACHC
The National Association of Community Health Centers was founded in 1971, with a mission to promote the provision of high quality, comprehensive and affordable health care that is coordinated, culturally and linguistically competent, and community directed for all medically underserved populations. NACHC is the membership organization for community health centers nationwide, which provide primary and preventive health care to over to 28 million people from more than 10,000 sites. www.nachc.org.