A Project Charter serves as a reference of authority for the future of the project. Creating a Project Charter and getting sign off from all participants gives all involved the authority to begin the work outlined therein. The task of developing the Project Charter builds understanding, consensus, and clarity about purpose, expectations, roles and responsibilities, and communications.

The NACHC Com­mu­nity Health Insti­tute (CHI) and Expo is the largest annual gath­er­ing of health cen­ter clin­i­cians, exec­u­tives, con­sumer board mem­bers along with Health Cen­ter Con­trolled Net­works and Sate/Regional Pri­mary Care Asso­ci­a­tions. The con­fer­ence (August 27–29, 2017) is sched­uled to kick off in San Diego at a time when health cen­ters are front and cen­ter in the trans­for­ma­tion of health­care. Health cen­ter lead­ers are look­ing to the future focused on the med­ical and man­age­ment teams needed for tomorrow’s health­care – the col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner­ships that can spur inno­va­tions – and the tech­nolo­gies to improve effi­ciency and cost effec­tive­ness in the deliv­ery of care.

Migrant Health Cen­ters are the early pio­neers of the Health Cen­ter Move­ment. The Migrant Health Pro­gram that was writ­ten into the Pub­lic Health Ser­vice Act of 1962 set forth new think­ing in this coun­try that health care is a basic human right. It was the pre­cur­sor of major social change in a decade of the 60’s when the nation awak­ened to the poverty and hard­ship of a pop­u­la­tion for out­side the main­stream. Migrant Health Cen­ters became the model for com­mu­nity health cen­ters nation­wide with their core com­po­nents of out­reach, patient edu­ca­tion, bilin­gual ser­vices, cul­tur­ally-sen­si­tive care, and com­mu­nity action and empow­er­ment.

The Pol­icy & Issues Forum (P&I) is THE largest gath­er­ing of health cen­ter clin­i­cians, exec­u­tive direc­tors, State and Regional Pri­mary Care part­ners, board mem­bers and advo­cates on record.  This event focuses on the lat­est in state and fed­eral gov­ern­ment poli­cies affect­ing Com­mu­nity Health Cen­ters and health care for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans. Visit HITEQ at booth #403 in Exhibit Hall C on Friday, March 31st.

This is a follow up to the webinar the Oregon Primary Care Association held in December 2016, where we will learn how local CCOs partner with clinics and patients to educate and engage them in appropriate avenues for care.