Audubon Area Community Care Clinic

by Audubon Area Community Services

Region 4B · Owensboro, KY
https://www.audubon-area.com/

Healthcare • Homeless

Overview

In 2017, Audubon Area Community Services, Inc. in a collaborative partnership with Owensboro Health Regional Health System, designed a HRSA 330 Publicly-funded, Federally Funded Health Center for the Homeless Program. The Federally Qualified Health Center opened in April 2017, it is the area’s only Healthcare for the Homeless (HCH) clinic to meet the vast, complex healthcare needs of the region’s most vulnerable citizens in Daviess, Hancock, Henderson, Ohio, McLean, and Union Counties. The program houses two Advanced Practice Nurse Practitioners, one Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, and an offering of other clinical and administrative professionals to meet the complex health care and human services needs of the homeless, precariously housed, and underserved populations of the service area.

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Local Need Addressed

The Audubon Area Community Care Clinic:

Creates a health care home/access to care point for individuals lacking in Primary Health Care including the homeless, low-income, and precariously housed in the service region.
Reduces load on emergency rooms and rates an access point for the homeless, low-income, and precariously housed.
Improves the community health care outcomes for all citizens in the region.
Helps marginalized populations manage chronic health care conditions.

Transformative Impact

Services more than 1,000 patients in the service area

Works to improve the health care outcomes for low-income and homeless patients in the practice

Increases access for those who lack access to normal health care platforms

Evidence-Based Outcomes

1,841

Medical visits

637

Homeless patients served

335

Behavioral health visits

Veteran patients served

Customer Voice

The clinic has a separate advisory board of directors made up of a majority of clinic patients (51%) and other individuals with expertise in the community serving the homeless in our service area. The board consists of 13 individuals of various backgrounds including administration, health care, finance, business, and human services. None of the board members are direct patients of the clinic, or consider the clinic as their primary health care home. The patient majority board has direct input regarding services, staffing, outreach, and operational capacity of clinical operations. To be considered a patient-board member, the patient must have received medical or behavioral health services from the clinic directly in the last 24-month period.

Equity Lens

The clinic’s target population are homeless, refugee, and veteran populations who desperately need expanded opportunities for healthcare access. This need is reiterated by the fact that the low-income penetration rate for the targeted region’s existing health care services is at a very low 2.71%. Additionally, there is an intentional focus on minority patient recruitment. Life to date examination of unique patient demographics of the clinic show that 9% of total patients are Black/African American; 7% Asian; 3% Hispanic; and 2% Mexican American Indian. Audubon Area Community Services has designed and implemented practices and protocols to ensure equal access to healthcare, maximized services engagement and utilization, and improved health outcomes for this population due to their poor healthcare outcomes.