HILL HEALTH CORPORATION
Achievements
1970s
Outreach. Trained neighborhood residents to be community health workers.
Outreach projects to migrant health workers, the homeless, people with AIDS,
uninsured families, Hispanic males, substance abusing women, the elderly,
underserved communities.
Team approach to patient care. Multi-disciplinary approach to patient care
involving teams of medical, nursing, mental health, social services and
nutrition providers meeting twice weekly.
Community empowerment. Hill Health Center Board of Directors, a model for
community participation and empowerment, offered consumers and community
residents a balance of power and decisive say in hiring and policy decisions.
Early child development. Early Stimulation Program recognized in the early
seventies that pre-school-age children need intellectual stimulation to develop
fully.
Nutrition. HHC began one of the first WIC (Women, Infants, Children) Programs
started in Connecticut in 1974. HHC was subject of a Yale study showing a
decrease in childhood anemia in the Hill neighborhood as a result of WIC.
Services to the elderly. The first public health clinic in the state dedicated
to an elderly population was established by HHC in 1976 in a Housing Authority
apartment for the elderly.
Medically underserved populations. The Hill-West Rock Health Center was opened
in 1976 to provide medical, dental, outreach, pharmacy and lab services in an
isolated low-income neighborhood of New Haven.
1980s
Teenage pregnancy. The Center initiated TAPP (Teenage Pregnancy Prevention and
Parenting) with federal funds to demonstrate ways of preventing teen pregnancy
and imparting parenting skills to teen mothers.
Coalition building. The Community Maternal, Infant and Child Care Center.
McCabe/Sherlock A project that gathered at one site coordinated services for
teen mothers offered by three agencies: a public school for pregnant high school
students, an infant-toddler day care center and the health (ob-gyn, prenatal
care, pediatrics, WIC) services of HHC.
Migrant farm workers. A project that sent a physician assistant to area farms
where migrant workers were housed.
Grass roots voter registration. The formation of the Greater New Haven Coalition
for People was spearheaded by HHC as a response to Nixon Administration funding
cutbacks. It led to a vigorous grass roots voter registration campaign that
upset a Congressional office holder. Also led to widespread coalition of
community people and human service agencies.
Managed care. In 1982, HHC negotiated a managed care contract with the New Haven
Welfare Department to provide medical services to general assistance clients.
The arrangement, one of the first such in New England, lasted until 1997 when
the State assumed management of the General Assistance Program.
Health care for the homeless. A pioneering program to reach out to homeless
families and individuals using a team of medical and mental health providers.
School-based health centers. In the late eighties, HHC opened one of first
state-funded school-based health centers and has since opened five more,
including a dental clinic. This is a way of bringing early identification of
problems and treatment, as well as health promotion, to students in needy
districts.
1990s
Health professional shortage areas. In the mid-nineties, as part of a statewide
initiative to bring medical services to underserved communities, Hill Health
Center opened satellites in West Haven and Ansonia.
Clinical research. HHC was one of the first community health centers in country
to undertake AIDS clinical trials as part of the NIH Community Programs for
Clinical Research in AIDS.
Medicaid managed care. The Center led the movement among community health
centers to form in 1996 the only non-profit managed care organization in the
State in 1996 -
Community Health Network, now the third largest HMO Medicaid provider in
the state.
Crystal award. HHC received in 1997 the Johnson & Johnson Crystal Award for its
work in opening a school-based dental clinic in an underserved area of New
Haven.
In 1998, Hill Health Corporation was accredited by the Joint Commission on the
Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.