Celebrating America’s Health Centers: The Key to Healthier Communities

The more than 1,400 community health centers across America provide care to more than 25 million Americans.

This Friday marks the end of National Health Centers Week, in which HHS and all Americans officially celebrate the wonderful work that is done across our country year-round by community health centers.

This has been a special week not just because it is a privilege to raise up the contributions of community health centers. It was also a chance for us to visit community health centers and see the special role that doctors, nurses, and others there play in providing care in people’s communities. As just the third Secretary of Health and Human Services to be a physician, seeing providers in action is always a special experience.

One of the first things to spark my interest in medicine was accompanying my grandfather on house calls, seeing how warmly he was welcomed by his patients. House calls are less common these days, but community health centers can offer patients the same kind of relationship: a welcoming place where patients can receive care from physicians they know and trust.

We saw this first-hand this week at a community health center not far from HHS headquarters in Washington: Unity Health Care’s Parkside Health Center. We also saw it when we had the chance to visit another community health center earlier this month, Peak Vista Health Center, all the way across the country in Colorado Springs, Colorado.