Health Center Program - Gallup Community Health (LALCS52988) is a newly designated Look-Alike Health Center applying for the HRSA New Access Point to increase capacity and access for the low-income minority residents of rural and predominantly Native American McKinley County, New Mexico. Gallup Community Health (GCH), a non-profit, patient-led organization, is the only effective primary care safety net provider for the community, as evidenced by the exponential growth in clinic size (from 4 to 11 to 40 exam rooms), provider cohort (from 1 to 20 clinicians) and patient visits in a short time. The health center opened in 2022 and will have served over 8,000 unduplicated patients by the end of 2024. Further supporting the exceptional need for GCH and NAP funding, the Health Center penetration rate for the GCH service area is only 7.5%. The service area, comprised of the 22 zip codes of McKinley County, where more than 90% of GCH patients live, is severely resource limited with poverty rates among the highest in the nation, an Unmet Needs Score of 95.43, and HPSA scores from 18-22. Service area residents are almost 80% Native American, primarily members of the Navajo Nation and Zuni Tribe. Limited resources, poor infrastructure (where many residents live miles from unpaved roads and without electricity and/or running water), and a history of severe intergenerational trauma result in an average life expectancy 9 years shorter than the state average. Service area behavioral health challenges are extreme and compounded by the impacts of COVID, which hit the local Native American population particularly hard. Substance use disorder, most notably alcohol use disorder, where the alcohol-related death rate is over 200/100,000, compared to 71/100,000 statewide. Gallup is home to a significant and growing number of unhoused individuals, for whom there is currently no dedicated clinical care. GCH has the proven capacity to increase accessibility and quality of healthcare services in the model of the Health Center movement. Most services are provided in-house, but required services not provided internally are available to all GCH patients via MOUs with area organizations. GCH offers evening and weekend hours, improving access and reducing unnecessary emergency room visits. Combined with our care coordination and transitional care management, GCH patients have access to the care they need when they need it. Through our FQHC look-alike designation, GCH has shown commitment and capacity to fully comply with FQHC requirements. GCH believes that health outcomes are dependent on the quality of care provided by and relationships built by the healthcare team, and our team-based care model allows all colleagues to do their best work. Our history of recruiting and retaining local clinicians, of training students and recent graduates to provide excellent healthcare to our target population, and the collaborative relationships we have built with local, state, and national partners provide us the resources and workforce needed to ensure success. The HRSA New Access Point funds are critical to GCH to meet the needs of community. Funding will allow GCH to substantially increase behavioral health services and to specifically target the service area homeless and housing-insecure population, via HCH designation. By integrating behavioral health into primary care services, increasing outreach and street medicine capacity, and investing in peer support workers and community health workers chosen for their lived experience, GCH aims to change the narrative for local healthcare, improve health indicators at a population level, support patients and families, and fulfil our mission of making excellent healthcare available to all, regardless of ability to pay.
