Addressing the Major Mistakes Community Health Centers Make – Mistakes 1, 2, and 3

Addressing the Major Mistakes Community Health Centers Make – Mistakes 1, 2, and 3

The potential for the success of a Community Health Center (CHC) is great; however, the track records of many Community Health Centers are littered with mistakes, failures, and attempts to repeat the same historic actions while expecting different results. This series is designed to help your Community Health Center avoid repeating the consequences of prior CHC failures:

a. Failure to serve the medically underserved in its area;
b. Failure to its employees by not having competent senior management;
c. Failure to use its resources effectively.

Mistake # 1. Failing to define the mission and purpose of the community health center (CHC):
It is important that the CHC’s mission and purpose be defined and shared with all involved parties and departments. This helps keep everyone focused. What business is your CHC really in? Is it medical services? Is it grant writing? Is it providing experience for new medical graduates? Is it serving the medically underserved? Do you, as a Board member, know what business your CHC is really in?

Mistake # 2. Giving The Community Health Center Tasks That Are Not Consistent With Its Mission:
The CHC should not become involved with projects that deviate from its established mission and purpose of serving the medically underserved. Evaluate work requests to insure that they are in keeping with the CHC’s purpose and goals.

Mistake # 3. Running a community health center using weak providers
The CHC’s gain their strengths through patient encounters, centralized systems, and experienced staff. Weak providers cannot financially support a CHC operation. These underfinanced CHCs with weak providers waste their employees’ talents by pushing them to be “jacks-of-all-trades” who do not have sufficient experience to effectively staff a heavily-used CHC operation.

Next post: The Major Mistakes Community Health Centers Make –
Mistakes 4, 5, and 6