New Funding Brings Total Investment to More Than $45 Million
Maricopa County, in partnership with the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers (AACHC), has awarded an additional $24.3 million to community health centers (CHCs) to improve infrastructure. This investment will ultimately increase health care services for Maricopa County residents, especially those who are uninsured or underinsured.
The funding is in addition to $21.4 million the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved in April for development and/or renovation of five community health center sites.
“After our first funding investment, we learned that there were other projects with our federally qualified health centers that were worth consideration,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, District 3. “The beauty of this investment is that these are sustainable projects that will continue to make a positive impact in the community for decades.”
The additional funding will support these projects:
- Mountain Park Health Center will receive $7.5 million to support the construction of a new primary care clinic in a high-need area of Glendale. Projected to serve approximately 10,000 individuals, the 27,500 square foot clinic will include 36 exam rooms for family medicine, pediatrics, and women’s health. The center also will provide oral health, behavioral health, dietitian services and an on-site laboratory.
- Valle del Sol will receive $533,500 to replace equipment across six health center locations. This organization-wide equipment upgrade will improve patient experience by providing a more accessible location for their physical and behavioral health care.
- Valleywise Health will receive $1.3 million for renovation and improvements at Valleywise Community Health Center in Guadalupe. The Valleywise Community Health Center in Chandler will receive $3.7 million for renovation of the clinic’s x-ray suite and dental suite, as well as a pharmacy expansion and overall building improvements.
- Circle the City will receive $5.6 million to build, purchase or lease a facility in the East Valley for a medical respite care center and possible primary care. The medical respite care center will provide people experiencing homelessness who need medically recuperative services with short-term residential care allowing them to also access behavioral and physical therapy supportive services. Circle the City also will receive $501,656 for renovation of its Downtown Family Health Center in Phoenix, which will create new exam rooms, a patient consult room, a medical procedure room, and other spaces to increase the Center’s capacity to provide medical care for an increasing number of patients and to add medical services.
- Neighborhood Outreach Access to Health (NOAH) will receive $3.4 million to purchase equipment required to establish a new information technology network that will allow NOAH to better meet patient needs and improve patient care and outcomes. The funds will also be used to purchase equipment for NOAH’s new Desert Mission Health Center, which will provide patient care for women’s health, hearing, vision, infectious disease, and individuals with limited mobility.
- NATIVE HEALTH will receive $1.7 million for the purchase of dental equipment at two Phoenix clinics and one Mesa clinic. The equipment will allow NATIVE HEALTH to begin providing dental care as a new service at its Mesa location, as well as increase the quality of care and number of patients able to be seen at the two Phoenix locations.
Jessica Yanow, president and CEO of the Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers, said, “We are grateful for our partnership with Maricopa County. This critical investment in health center infrastructure will increase access to care and have lasting impact on communities throughout Maricopa County.”
Maricopa County’s support for the community health center capital projects is federally funded through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), enacted to provide programs and services to help people, families and businesses recover from the effects of the pandemic. These projects will help prepare Maricopa County to meet current and future public health crises, as well as daily health care needs. The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved spending priorities in ARPA funds that can be tracked on a public dashboard.
The Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers (AACHC) is the Primary Care Association for the state of Arizona. AACHC provides training and technical assistance to Arizona’s community health centers in support of their mission to deliver comprehensive, culturally competent, high-quality primary healthcare services to all Arizonans. AACHC comprises the state’s largest network of primary care providers and represents Arizona's CHCs who serve their communities including vulnerable, underserved, and low-income patients in rural and urban areas across the state. Arizona's CHCs serve 740,000 patients annually (about 1 in 10 Arizonans). CHCs provide primary care services including medical, oral health, behavioral health, pharmacy as well as a variety of enabling services to meet the needs of their communities.