The site will showcase how leadership is making a difference. It is the leadership of those who hold formal positions in health and other sectors as well as neighborhood informal leaders who may not hold former leadership positions in their communities that makes Community Voices an effort with lasting impact. These leaders work at the community level to strengthen the financial viability and program offerings of the health care safety net. Their vision takes into account the diverse perspectives of different racial groups, ethnicities, and economic and social classes, but includes a central consideration of human health needs. It is here at the local level that leaders who are closest to the problems can address the shortcomings of our current health care system and propose solutions at local, state, and federal levels. During your tour of this site, you will learn how local organizations are working with government and health leaders to rise above barriers to health services and to create a healthier tomorrow.
You will also be able to examine the work of communities as they identify gaps in service and payment in critical areas such as oral and mental health, among others, and as they work to design realistic primary health care systems that serve the members of their communities and the nation. You can learn how these visionaries are working to make their community health systems financially stable while also serving in culturally appropriate ways the working poor, uninsured, under-insured, underserved, family, friends, neighbors, small businesses, and ultimately their cities and states.
You will see how leadership at the local level is inspiring a new spirit to solve problems. You will be able to read a first-hand account of the new national priority given to improving oral health by the nation's top medical official, U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Satcher notes, "Oral health must be a critical component in the provision of health care and in the design of community programs." We are pleased that Community Voices is working closely with the Surgeon General to help shape these community programs and provide the vision to improve oral health.
We invite you to explore North Carolina's FirstConnection program that offers health-related services to adults and children who do not qualify for public health assistance. It is this type of effort at the community level that will have a national impact on health care status and the financial viability of the safety net.
Allow our virtual tour to take you through the 13 laboratories that comprise Community Voices. Each has a unique approach to addressing the needs of the underserved and the safety-net institutions in their respective communities. The Baltimore, Maryland, site, for example, focuses many of its efforts on improving the health of the more than 55,000 uninsured men in the community. Denver Health Community Voices is marketing subsidized benefit plans to businesses with up to 50 employees. Other Community Voices sites are also working to expand health insurance coverage by providing new insurance products and enrolling individuals in existing insurance programs. In addition, all of the Community Voices sites are working to create a stronger overall integrated service delivery system, to inform policy, and to promote community involvement in the design and development of health-related programs. Central to all these efforts is the commitment to incorporate new viewpoints, to empower non-traditional leaders, and to give voice to those who are currently not a part of the health care system.
Our website also features publications highlighting Community Voices efforts, including the recently released paper, Increasing Access: Building Working Solutions, by Jack A. Meyer, Ph.D., and Sharon Silow-Carroll, MBA, MSW, that outlines the nation's lack of access to basic health care services and offers a multi-faceted framework for addressing these issues.
A Glimpse at Community Voices
Community Voices: HealthCare for the Underserved is a multi-year initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to improve health access and quality. As a national initiative with 13 sites serving the underserved in 10 states and the District Columbia, Community Voices is seeking bold new solutions to ensure that vital services reach those who need them most. Building up from the community level, the effort is helping raise the voices of the underserved to make health access and quality part of the national debate.
At 13 sites across the nation, new innovations are being developed from the ground up to find solutions that work in the community and for the community. Just establishing programs that are supposed to increase health insurance coverage does not guarantee access to care. Many fall through the cracks or can't find the health care services they need. Community Voices is developing culturally sensitive programs that can effectively serve the diverse racial, social, and ethnic groups that make up the uninsured. Vital funding streams to secure the survival of the health safety net need to flow through the communities they serve. A full picture of health, including mental health, oral health, must be brought to all. Through this important work, the 13 sites are helping to fill those cracks and ensure that people receive needed care.
In Denver, health outreach workers comb the city at night to help ensure the city's homeless don't go without critical services. In rural North Carolina, children have visited a dentist for the very first time. American Indians in California are moving toward greater self-determination in health care by creating their own health network. Baltimore has opened the nation's first health clinic devoted specifically to men. These are just some examples of the kind of change that can occur when stakeholders at the community level start building a cost-effective system designed to provide equitable access to both coverage and, more importantly, needed care.
Achieving this kind of change on the national level will not be easy. Achieving increased access and a stronger health safety net requires changing institutions, the health marketplace and public policies. Each of the 13 Community Voices sites is working to do just that. This website is a tool to give you a glimpse of that work. Please browse this site and feel free to talk to and visit these vibrant communities working to build change.