Dr. Jack Geiger: Instruments of Change
Dr. Jack Geiger, co-founder of America’s Community Health Centers, discusses how community partnerships can help CHCs be instruments of change for their populations.
Successful community health centers recognized that health status is more than just medical care. By forming partnerships with government and other local agencies, these health centers figure out very creative ways to optimize what they do for their communities. As Dr. Geiger said, “Community health center shouldn’t wait. You should be leaders in your community driving change.”
I think every federally qualified community health center should find a way to have one full-time staff member dedicated solely to exploring and establishing these kinds of collaborative efforts.
To be going to the Housing Department, the Transportation Department, the Legal department, the other branches of city government, and city councils, and state agencies, and saying ‘What can we do together as a health issue to affect the health of our patients and these populations.’ That’s in everybody’s interest.
That’s what brought us to all this in the first place. We want to be something more than mechanics repairing the illness, we want to be instruments of change that will make a healthier longer life available to so many people.
At Sage Growth Partners we are determined to continue our work helping FQHCs all across America become instruments of change in their communities.