Greater Portland Health (GPH) is an integrated family practice model providing preventive, acute, infectious, and chronic disease management; integrated behavioral health; substance use treatment; dental care; and supportive social services to the most vulnerable populations in the Greater Portland, Maine area: families living in poverty, homeless, immigrant/refugee/asylum-seekers, children, elderly, and more. Our mission is to provide high quality patient-centered healthcare that is accessible, affordable, and culturally sensitive. Opening its first site in 2009, GPH now serves 11,365 patients at ten locations, including one health care for the homeless program, two public housing sites, five school-based health centers, and mobile preventative dental hygiene services in all Portland public schools. Services are offered on a sliding fee scale discount program to all patients below the poverty line and regardless of their ability to pay, effectively increasing local care and reducing reliance on hospital emergency departments.
Greater Portland Health is the only federally qualified health center in Maine’s most populous county and urbanized area: Cumberland County and Portland. Portland encompasses 19 contiguous census tracts, all of which have been designated as primary care medical Health Professional Shortage Areas. Two of the tracts have been designated as Medically Underserved Areas. Healthcare access is limited, especially for those experiencing socioeconomic disparities.
The center’s patient population is largely comprised of the most vulnerable members of the general population, the single most defining characteristic of which is poverty. Greater Portland Health is also far and away the most diverse health center in the state of Maine.
Approximately 75% of patients live at or below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level, and 92% are at or below 200%.
Refugees, immigrants, and asylum-seekers from Iraq and Western and Central African countries are the groups most represented at our health centers.
Approximately 40% of GPH’s patients are currently experiencing homelessness.
