Health center to expand
Stimulus funds pay for added services
A regional nonprofit will be able to expand services at its new Gloucester community health center thanks to $1.3 million in federal stimulus money.
North Shore Community Health was among the 126 health centers nationwide receiving a collective $155 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
"We are extremely excited because we can expand service to a very needy population in Gloucester through medical, dental, and behavioral healthcare," Robert Hendershott, chief executive of North Shore Community Health, said of his agency's two-year funding award.
Community health centers are nonprofit facilities that provide primary healthcare to all who need it, regardless of ability to pay. They operate with the help of state, federal, and private funds.
North Shore Community Health, which for years has run family health centers in Salem and Peabody and a teen health center at Salem High School, last October opened the Gloucester Family Health Center in a Washington Street building adjacent to Addison Gilbert Hospital.
But the Gloucester center, whose creation was a longtime goal of North Shore Community Health, has been a bare-bones operation because North Shore Community Health had been unsuccessful - until now - in landing federal funding for the facility.
"We just didn't have the resources to open it up broadly," Hendershott said. "Now, this really allows us to do that."
North Shore Community Health officials joined with US Senator John F. Kerry, US Representative John F. Tierney, city officials, state lawmakers, and others to celebrate the award March 7 at the Gloucester site.
"The city is very pleased," said Gloucester's public health director, Jack Vondras, who has worked closely with North Shore Community Health to establish a Gloucester center.
Vondras noted that, based on data the city collected four years ago, about 12,000 of Gloucester's 31,000 year-round residents are uninsured or underinsured. The data was used in a successful application the city filed to have Gloucester designated a "medically underserved area," a necessary step for North Shore Community Health to seek federal funding for a center.
"A sizeable population is not being served," Vondras said. "Some could go to Salem or Lynn or even Lawrence to receive care at health centers, but most do not. So our goal has been to serve these individuals here . . . to open a high-quality center."
"Our other goal is to have this population stop using the emergency room for primary care, which has been standard operating procedure for under- and uninsured people," he said. "Our goal is to get them coming to primary care on a regular basis so that any of their health problems can be caught earlier in the continuum of the illness."
Vondras said the number of uninsured in the city may be down in recent years due to the state's healthcare reform law. But he said the need for the center has not lessened, noting that many remain underinsured or are not accustomed to seeing a doctor.
Hendershott said North Shore Community Health applied unsuccessfully in 2006 and 2007 for funding from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration to open the Gloucester center.
In 2007, the Gloucester center proposal was placed on a list of "approved but unfunded" health-center projects. Hendershott said that list was used as a basis for awarding the federal stimulus money. Although his organization decided last fall to open the center without the federal money, it can now use the funds to expand services.
North Shore Community Health owns a portion of the building and leases the remainder from Northeast Health System, the parent company of Addison Gilbert. North Shore Community Health has signed agreements with Addison Gilbert enabling the center to refer patients to the hospital for lab tests and other services.
Hendershott said $650,000 of the $1.3 million award will be used to offset the costs of medical and dental providers. Another $500,000 will be used to buy new equipment, and $150,000 for additional renovations.
Currently there are the equivalent of 1.5 full-time primary-care physicians. As patient demand grows, that number will gradually increase to four.
Since it began offering dental service last month, the center has had just one dentist and no hygienist, enough to make use of only three of its six dental exam rooms. The federal money will allow it to use all six rooms through the addition of a hygienist, more equipment, and possibly a second dentist.
The center currently has one mental health provider through a contract with another agency. State funding for the service recently expired, but North Shore Community Health is seeking other funding to continue that service.
Hendershott said he expects that, by the end of the second year, the Gloucester center will serve about 4,500 patients annually, with about 11,000 patient visits. He said by that point, when the stimulus money expires, the center should be self-sustaining.
