Friday, May 9, 2025
5/9/2025
Congressionally Directed Spending for Construction Projects - Turner House Clinic, Inc (d/b/a Vibrant Health), a Kansas City, Kansas-based Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and nationally recognized Patient-Centered Medical Home, has been dedicated to providing quality healthcare to uninsured children and adults in Wyandotte County for over 30 years. Established as the Turner House Clinic in 1990, Vibrant Health has evolved into a paid-provider FQHC, serving over 21,000 patients through four Wyandotte County, Kansas clinics. Their mission is to provide respectful, empowering, culturally sensitive, and appropriate high-quality healthcare for the community, regardless of socio-economic obstacles. Wyandotte County consistently ranks among the least healthy counties in Kansas due to numerous social determinants of health (SDOH) contributing to poor health outcomes. In contrast, neighboring Johnson County consistently ranks as the wealthiest and healthiest county in Kansas, highlighting the impact of social disadvantage and inequities on health outcomes. Despite the community’s collective efforts to coordinate access to medical, dental, and behavioral health services, specialty care referrals, and social service assistance, Wyandotte County's health statistics have shown little improvement since 2010, indicating the need for new approaches to addressing health disparities. The Vibrant Health Center for Health Equity project aims to create a state-of-the-art, full-service community health center in Northeast Kansas City, Kansas, an area in Wyandotte County deeply impacted by decades of neighborhood disinvestment that obstructed wealth attainment for generations. The project will use a place-based approach to equitably engage the surrounding community, ensuring that the residents who represent the neighborhood’s diversity can participate as partners in the planning and implementation processes. The proposed Center for Health Equity is a 50,000 sq. ft. healthcare facility that takes a holistic approach to health and wellness by including wrap-around health services to address the full SDoH. The project includes approximately 15,000 sq. ft. dedicated to Vibrant Health clinical services. These services will encompass preventative care, chronic disease management, acute medical care, women's health care, behavioral health care, and 340B pharmacy services for individuals of all ages. In addition to Vibrant Health clinical space, the project includes 20,000 sq. ft. of office space leased to mission-aligned programs operating out of community partner institutions that also address the SDoH, including the KU Medical Center and the University of Kansas Health System. Vibrant Health is leveraging existing community partnerships in the development of this building project, including the Unified Government of Wyandotte County, the Wyandotte Economic Council, Cross-Lines Community Outreach, Groundwork Northeast Revitalization Group, the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, The University of Kansas Health System, Children's Mercy Hospital-Kansas City, Wyandotte County's Health Equity Task Force, and Kansas City, KS Public Schools. Vibrant Health will own and use the facility to support future community health initiatives. Vibrant Health Center is seeking $4 million in federal funding to support the development of a state-of-the-art community health center in Northeast Kansas City, Kansas. The project has an estimated total cost of $27,260,000 and federal funding will cover a portion of the construction costs.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).