Chicago Tribune
December 22, 2010
Centers provide free care to underserved areas.
From Chicago Tribune:
At first glance, this health care center on the city’s Northwest Side looks like any other facility offering medical care to young patients: In the waiting area, children will find a basket of books on a small table, toys on the floor and a chalkboard.
But the facility is inside Hibbard Elementary School in Albany Park and is the latest health center to debut inside a Chicago Public Schools facility.
The center, which opened in October and is operated by the nonprofit Heartland International Health Center, serves students at Hibbard and two nearby CPS schools, Albany Park Multicultural Academy and Thomas Edison Regional Gifted Center. It offers comprehensive health services and dental care to students at no cost to families. Next semester it will begin offering mental health services.
The number of school-based health centers is on the rise nationwide, with nine opening in Illinois during the 2009-10 academic year. Illinois has about 60 such centers, half of which are in Chicago, according to the Illinois Coalition for School Health Centers, an advocacy group that is part the Illinois Maternal & Child Health Coalition.
“There have been more and more principals who are interested in having a school-based health center,” said Jaime Dircksen, manager of Family and Community Partnerships at the CPS Coordinated School Health Unit. To date, the system has about 30, with the first school-based health center having opened at Austin Community High School in the 1980s.
School-based health centers tend to be sponsored by local health care organizations, such as hospitals and community health centers. Health care providers serving CPS and other Illinois school districts include Rush University Medical Center, School Health LINK Inc., Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Neighborhoods Initiative Division of Community Health.
Located primarily in low-income areas with significant uninsured populations, advocates say school-based health centers provide relief for the nation’s health care systems, help to reduce student absenteeism and improve health literacy in families.
Divya Mohan Little, project director for the Illinois Coalition for School Health Centers, said there is evidence that school-based health centers also lower emergency room visits and hospitalizations.
“If those visits are being reduced, we are reducing costs for the health care safety net,” Little said.
