August 10, 2021 – BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) along with Direct Relief and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) is celebrating National Health Center Week (August 8-14) by honoring the six community health centers in the U.S. who earned this year’s Innovations in Care Award, recognizing their success in helping vulnerable patients manage complex chronic diseases and improve overall health.
Each Innovations in Care Award winner received a $150,000 grant to expand their successful programs for providing quality care to at-risk populations. Their innovative approaches, detailed below, include offering culturally sensitive, team-based care; implementing new services like telehealth, which help patients overcome lack of transportation and other barriers to care; and providing education and counseling to patients in their native language, to ensure they understand how to take their medications safely, the companies said.
The $900,000 in grant awards was provided through the BD Helping Build Healthy Communities initiative – a public-private partnership started in 2013, funded by BD and the BD Foundation, and implemented by Direct Relief and NACHC.
Through the year 2023, BD and the BD Foundation have committed to invest $22.8 million in this initiative, furthering the company’s commitment to improving health equity by expanding access to care in under-resourced and under-represented communities.
To date, the initiative has issued 48 grants to health centers in 20 states and has donated more than 38 million insulin syringes and pen needles to more than 1,300 community health centers and free and charitable clinics nationwide.
The following award-winners were selected with guidance from a national panel of clinical pharmacists in the field of Medication Therapy Management:
- Healthnet (Indianapolis, IN)
- Northeast Valley Health Corporation (San Fernando, CA)
- Share Our Selves (Costa Mesa, CA)
- The University of Minnesota Community-University Health Care Center (Minneapolis, MN)
- Wahiawa Center for Community Health (Wahiawa, HI)
- Zufall Health Center (Dover, NJ)