Friday, May 9, 2025
5/9/2025
Fiscal Year 2025 Expanded Hours. - ABSTRACT Project: Fiscal Year 2025 Expanded Hours (EH) Applicant Name: Georgia Highlands Medical Services, Inc. Address: 475 Tribble Gap Road, Cumming, Georgia 30040 Contact Name: Todd Shifflet Contact Phone: (470) 297-1020 Email Address: todd.shifflet@ghms-inc.org Website: www.ghms-inc.org Congressional Districts: GA: 6th Funding Opportunity #: HRSA-25-084 H80 Grant Award #: H80CS00470 Summary: Founded in 1979, Georgia Highlands Medical Services (GHMS) is a Community Health Center that provides primary and preventive health care to medically underserved residents of Bartow, Cherokee, Dawson, Forsyth, Hall and surrounding counties in North Georgia. Throughout its history, GHMS has received local and national acclaim for its delivery of comprehensive, quality health services. For decades, GHMS has been providing some afterhours and weekend coverage for patients in need of that access and seeks to expound on that coverage across a large portion of its service area. Community Need: Increased access to primary care for the low-income, uninsured and linguistically isolated through expanded hours has been identified as a priority community need through GHMS’ 2022 Community Needs Assessment; patient satisfaction surveys; community demographic and utilization statistics; and patient and GHMS board member input. The total GHMS Service Area population is 1,054,848, and a total of 199,654 residents are identified as low-income. Of those, only 20,035 residents – only 10% Health Center Penetration – are receiving primary health care. The majority of GHMS’ patient population is Hispanic or Latino (65.4%) and most are identified as best served in Spanish (54.2%). In the community, 31.9% of Hispanic residents are uninsured compared to 10.25% of the general population and 7.4% for the white, non-Hispanic, residents. Most are employed by the large number of poultry plants in the community or work as day laborers, in construction or in the service industry. Additional access to quality medical care outside traditional hours to meet the needs of these working residents and their families is needed to not only provide access but also improve outcomes and alleviate utilization of the E/R for ambulatory care sensitive conditions. Proposed Project/Services: For decades, GHMS has, given resources, extended hours of operation to improve access to its target population in need of this additional access. This has included late hours one day a week at most offices and limited Saturday hours at its Cumming Family Health Center. In 2023, GHMS extended that effort further with the start-up of “Express Care” services that includes extended hours but also provides more immediate same-day care availability. GHMS is proposing to expand that model of access through Expanded Hours funding to add additional weeknight and weekend hours for family practice and pediatric care (for acute and well care) at three of its current medical centers. The majority of staff hired will be bi-lingual, and the services provided will include integrated case management and other enabling services to ensure the access provided meets the medical and social determinant needs of patients. Proposed Impact: GHMS proposes to expand access to high quality primary health care services (family practice and pediatrics) by expanding hours at three GHMS office locations. To do so, GHMS will hire 1.0 FTE Family Nurse Practitioner; .5 FTE Pediatric Nurse Practitioner; 1.5 FTE Medical Assistant; 1.5 FTE Interpreter; 1.0 FTE Community Health Worker; 1.5 FTE Phlebotomist; 1.5 FTE Front Office Specialist; 1.5 FTE Phlebotomist; .5 FTE Scheduler; and .5 FTE IT Support Staff. GHMS plans to provide care to 2,408 patients with 5,779 provider visits in CY 2025. It’s estimated that 1,373 patients will already be patients of GHMS, and 1,035 will be new patients.
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).