Health-Care Centers Expand Into Rural Areas
Published Jan 24, 2008
Brazos Valley Health Partnership makes health care more accessible.
A variety of health-care treatment options usually can be found in an urban setting, but outlying areas often suffer from a lack of needed services. Four years ago, the Brazos Valley Health Partnership set out to change that.
Acting in cooperation with the Center for Community Health Development, the Office of Rural and Community Affairs and several other partners, the organization used a $2 million, three-year grant to fund community health centers in some of the more remote areas of the Brazos Valley. The goal, says Angela Alaniz, director of the BVHP, was to establish centers that would eventually be operated by community officials, and would integrate with services and providers in College Station, Bryan and other population centers.
“The whole thing started in 2001 with the formation of the Center for Community Health Development,” Alaniz says. The center’s early goal was to assess the health needs of the Valley and begin addressing those needs through the communities themselves.
“A key thing the assessment revealed was that there were a lot of resources available, but they weren’t necessarily coordinated very well,” Alaniz says.
The first resource center was set up in Madison County in 2003. Since that time, four others have been added in Caldwell, Navasota, Centerville and Summerville. All are based on the same model, where the community itself becomes responsible for running the office, and various providers come in to offer services. In Madisonville, for example, 12 different organizations offer services including mental health services, childhood development, audiology, sub stance-abuse counseling, medication assistance, a physician’s assistant and case management.
Each of the resource centers also has a minivan driven by volunteers, so the major issue of transportation for clients is handled, both in terms of getting people to and from the center itself, as well as to other facilities for care and treatment. In some areas, the Brazos Valley Community Action Agency has been able to expand offerings as its com munity health centers tie in with what’s going on at the resource centers.
And with the local focus, which includes community health resource commissions to oversee the operations of the centers, the rural areas served have become much more proactive in identifying needs, Alaniz says.
“The communities have begun to recognize these centers as a forum to discuss health issues and get input on how to develop services in that specific community,” she says. “Each is so unique, and they’re working with providers directly to see what works best.
“It’s been a great experience,” she says, “and to me the most rewarding part has been seeing the community folks come together and realize the impact they can have for their citizens.”
Story by Joe Morris
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