33days until
September 1 Grants Due

Downloads


Grant Application


Partners In Philanthropy

McGowan Board Intranet

McGowan Scholars Network



Administration

Community Health



In 2008, CommunityHealth commemorated its 15th anniversary providing free health care to low-income, uninsured individuals and families living in Chicago and the surrounding metropolitan area. Over the past decade and a half, CommunityHealth has become the largest free clinic in Illinois and is one of the leading free clinics in the United States annually serving 7,000 patients through more than 20,000 medical visits. Our 600+ volunteers include 285 physicians who donate their time and render primary care as well as 23 specialty services ranging from audiology to urology. The health center is open six days a week, including four evenings, and patients are seen by appointment. No fee is ever charged for any service, whether it is examinations, lab tests, medications, case management, counseling or education classes. Gifts and grants from the private sector account for more than 90% of the health center’s operating budget. Ninety-three cents of every dollar raised goes to direct patient care. 

In Metropolitan Chicago, 1.3 million people have no insurance. They are part of the growing number of uninsured across the country – now totaling over 47 million -- who are falling through the cracks of our health care delivery system. The facts are daunting: 

  • 42% of Hispanics, 28% of African Americans and 12% of white, non-Hispanics living in Chicago are uninsured.
  • Without insurance, individuals delay going to a doctor so that treatable or preventable conditions become critical and even life threatening.
  • Late stage illnesses are harder and more costly to treat.
  • The uninsured live sicker and die earlier. The Institute of Medicine and the Urban Institute place that number between 18,000 – 20,000 annually.
  • A recent Families USA study indicated that 960 uninsured people die every year in Illinois – 18 working-age Illinoisans every week!
CommunityHealth is committed to reversing these statistics by providing compassionate, culturally sensitive, primary and specialty care at no cost to those who would otherwise go without. Over the past 15 years, not only have the numbers of this vulnerable population continued to increase but these uninsured patients are coming to the health center with more serious and complicated illnesses. Indeed, now almost half of those seen at CommunityHealth are being treated for chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. This should come as no surprise as Latinos and African Americans, groups that are inordinately afflicted by these diseases, represent 75% of the patients at the health center. 

As stated by CommunityHealth’s volunteer medical director Babs Waldman, M.D., “the health center’s goal is for our patients and their family members to become aware of chronic diseases they may have and to actively manage their conditions. The more involved our patients are in their diagnosis, and the more they take charge of their treatment plan, the better they do.” No members of the CommunityHealth family are more on the front lines of that care than the health center’s nursing staff. Their dedication and skill play a central role in (a) the case management of patients with chronic illnesses, (b) the promotion of health and wellness, and (c) the implementation of quality improvement initiatives and new programs that build upon and refine the array of medical, educational and mental health services available to the low-income, uninsured patients who have made CommunityHealth their medical home. 

The William G. McGowan Charitable Fund’s support will enable the health center to 

1) expand the case management program by hiring a fourth staff nurse; 2) evaluate through the instrumentation of the Clinical Outcomes Database the impact this program as well as interventions such as education programs have on CommunityHealth’s patients – with the goal of improving health outcomes and reducing emergency room visits; and 3) generate findings that can be shared with CommunityHealth’s network of regional and national free clinic associations in the interest of contributing to a better understanding of how to treat and prevent chronic illnesses. 
Additionally, an expanded nursing staff will be vital to CommunityHealth’s ability to meet the challenge of serving patients at multiple sites, as the health center proceeds with establishing a satellite clinic on Chicago’s south side in the coming year.