Medically underserved populations are in urban areas too
Populations designated as underserved by health care practitioners are not isolated to rural areas of Colorado. Beginning in 1996, the Colorado Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) System began the process of adding a fifth regional center to serve these populations also in the central and primarily urban areas of Colorado.
Central Colorado AHEC became a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization like its sister regional offices in September and covers the 12 counties around the Denver metropolitan area extending from Boulder to and including El Paso County. This service area covers close to 70% of the population of Colorado.
“Central Colorado AHEC has a key role in linking the resources of the university with communities that are interested in improving the health of their residents,” said Kris Wenzel, RN, MBA, director of the Central Colorado AHEC. “We are able to function as a liaison with the CU-Health Sciences Center schools and establish relationships that allow for clinical placements of students, and we have a role in pipeline development – letting the area’s middle and high school students explore health care professions.”
Wenzel cites the Thornton Partnerships for Community Health Task Force as an example of how AHEC can serve as a bridge between the resources of the university and the community’s needs. Working with several other community groups and university partners, Central Colorado AHEC supported a community assessment of the Thornton area to develop a profile of the community’s health needs. This Partnership for Community Health continues to offer coordination among public and private organizations: city and government agencies, community groups, neighborhoods and community activities.
With students from the CU Schools of Nursing and Medicine doing a large share of the work, teams walked the streets of the community to gather information for detailed assessments of what people in the neighborhood needed in terms of health care.
A wide range of health related and social needs were identified – from access and affordability of health care, the need for dental care among children to ways to address teen pregnancy. The assessment also identified a need for a multilingual resource list of health care providers.
Through evaluation of data and demographic information it was determined that many people had resources available to them but they were not accessing them. Then the agencies partnered in supplying the information to neighborhood groups and events to better meet the needs of the community. Another example, in the case of dental care, children were provided access through the schools in the area, and support for construction of a dental suite in a new Thornton Clinica Compensena clinic.
Information is now being provided through many conduits in the community - including area churches, community fairs and events. The program has been successful in focusing on true areas of need and is being expanded to the larger Adams County area.
In terms of pipeline development, Central Colorado AHEC has established relationships with a number of schools in the region participating in career fairs and setting up health care job shadowing opportunities. The AHEC is working with the 9Health Fair in a special program designed for kids to plan and implement Health Fairs in their own school. Another science and math student focus in middle and high school is the 2001 and 2002 sponsorship of the Denver Metropolitan Regional Science and Engineering Fairs.
The Summer Institute for Health Careers is one of the premier programs that the AHEC has developed bringing students into the Denver metropolitan area from all over the state. The students stay at CU-Boulder and interact with professors and practitioners from that campus and the CU-Health Sciences Center to gain a better perspective of a variety of health career opportunities available to them.
The work of the Central Colorado AHEC continues to impact access for the health of Colorado residents through community partnerships, linking UC Health Sciences Center resources and the support of the development of health professionals.