New Opportunities awarded Affordable Care Act - Health Center Planning Grant

New Opportunities awarded Affordable Care Act - Health Center Planning Grant

Project Abstract

Proposed grant project: Through this planning project, New Opportunities – a community action agency with more than 40 years of experience filling needs of underserved clients – will work with key stakeholders in the West Central Iowa counties of Audubon, Carroll, Crawford and Guthrie to determine the feasibility of developing and operating a Community Health Center (CHC). Specifically, New Opportunities will use this planning grant period to accomplish the following objectives:

·         Review existing health data sets for Audubon, Carroll, Crawford and Guthrie counties;

·         Determine what health data in the catchment region is incomplete and work to develop and execute a proper assessment to gain a thorough understanding of urgent issues and unmet needs; 

·         Promote a region-wide understanding of what a Community Health Center is, including all federal expectations and requirements of a CHC;

·         Research and develop a cost-effective model of health care to meet the unique needs of the region while also meeting section 330 requirements; and

·         Facilitate a needs-based decision by the regional stakeholders as to whether or not a Community Health Center is appropriate for the four-county area.

Needs to be addressed: The four-county area that the proposed Community Health Center would serve has several health needs. For example, the small region has four certified Rural Health Clinics – a classification that generally means there are a large number of underserved patients in its local service area. In addition, one of the counties (Carroll) has a Medically Underserved Population designation, while the other three counties (Audubon, Crawford and Guthrie) have been designated as partial Medically Underserved Areas.  Other examples of needs that have been identified by research include:

·         The Population Health Institute notes three of the four counties have a percentage of uninsured adults under age 65 that is significantly higher than the state of Iowa’s average of 10 percent. The fourth county has a rate that is equal to the state’s.

·         Data from the Population Health Institute also shows three of the four counties have Primary Care Provider Rates drastically below the state’s average of 100 per 100,000 (Crawford is 71, Guthrie is 62 and Audubon is 32).

·         Furthermore, one county in particular, Crawford, has a unique set of challenges. The county has Iowa’s largest concentration of Latinos, roughly 24 percent of its population. Due to its large meatpacking industry, the county also has seen an increase of additional minority groups, such as, Vietnamese, Hmong, Lao, Burmese, Sudanese, Ethiopians, Eritreans and a variety of other smaller groups. 

·         On top of that, 12.3 percent of Crawford County’s population falls at or below federal poverty levels. This is higher than the statewide average of 11.4 percent.