Health

20 HEALTH • September 21, 2015 With 50 years under their belts, leaders eye new potential \\ By Emily Micucci W ith a high concentration of life sciences and medical device companies creating innovative products, and public health leaders on the forefront of health care policy, the Bay State often sets health care precedent. An obvious example was the 2006 universal health care law enacted under former Gov. Mitt Romney. Today, Massachusetts has the lowest rate of uninsured people anywhere in the coun- try, hovering around two percent. COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS But trailblazing started long before state health care reform. For instance, community health centers, now nationwide fixtures, got their start in Massachusetts 50 years ago, a milestone that com- munity health center leaders celebrated last month. And 50 years after their inception in Boston, the community health center landscape has blossomed and evolved, from a small number of providers that acted as a safety net for the disadvantaged, to a large network of centers offering state-of-the-art health care technology and delivery for people from all walks of life. James W. Hunt, Jr., president and CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers since 1979, said centers are more relevant today than ever. While the rest of the provider com- munity is striving to adopt population health man- agement methods and create "patient-centered medical homes" that meet all of a patient's health care needs, community health centers are ahead of the curve on both fronts. In fact, fostering patient- centered medical homes has been engrained in the community health center model from the start, he said. "They're the future of the health care delivery sys- tem," Hunt said, predicting that community-based care, from all types of providers, will be the focal point of health care policy makers in the years to come. A brief history While community-based care has received emphasis since the enactment of health care reform at the state and federal levels (primarily because it drives down the cost of delivering care), it started out as a means for reaching people who had limited access to health care in the 1960s. The movement was started by two physician activists, Dr. Jack Geiger and Dr. Count D. Gibson Jr., who developed the model and founded two community health cen- ters in 1965. The first one was the Columbia Point Health Center in Dorchester, and the second was located in rural Mound Bayou, Miss. Community health centers gained momentum a year later after Sen. Edward M. Kennedy visited Columbia Point Health Center, leading him to secure $51 million in funding for the development of similar health cen- ters across the U.S. Today, there are more than 1,200 community health centers across the country, with PHOTO/EDD COTE

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