In the mid 1960s, the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park teetered on the brink of ruin. LFHC offers a wide scope of enabling services that assist community residents in overcoming financial and other barriers. Once home to one of the world’s busiest commercial waterfronts, the community lost 40,000 jobs with the decline of the shipping industry in the 1950s. Into the vacant neighborhood flocked thousands of immigrants who had fled poverty and unemployment overseas only to find the same in Brooklyn.
Concerned for the fate of their neighbors, a handful of community members united to form the Sunset Park Health Council, Inc., partnered with a local hospital (the Lutheran Medical Center), and, in October, 1967, opened the doors of the Sunset Park Family Health Center (SPFHC) – one of the nation’s first Community Health Centers. The Sunset Park Family Health Center has since become the hub of a far-reaching system of Community Health Centers collectively known as the Lutheran Family Health Centers network (LFHC). With 757,000 patient visits in 2011, LFHC is the primary care home for 114,779 residents of underserved communities throughout Brooklyn, and the nation’s second largest Federally Qualified Health Center. LFHC sparked and has since sustained Sunset Park’s transformation into an independent and viable community.
Currently, LFHC operates 9 full-time primary care sites, 15 school-based health centers, 16 school-based dental clinics, and a behavioral health program that co-locates mental health and chemical dependency services with HIV primary care.LFHC offers a wide scope of enabling services that assist community residents in overcoming financial and other barriers.
LFHC offers a full range of comprehensive primary and specialty care services as well as comprehensive dentistry at five health center sites and a dental campus in Brooklyn Heights. Complementing this system is a full array of ancillary and diagnostic services, rehabilitation and early intervention programs, three WIC nutrition programs, social work services, and comprehensive health promotion/disease prevention activities including HIV counseling and testing. LFHC offers a wide scope of enabling services that assist community residents in overcoming financial and other barriers including financial counseling and assistance in applying for public health insurance and entitlements; a sliding fee scale for the uninsured; transportation services; patient advocacy and assistance; and, language interpreter services. LFHC’s Department of Community Based Programs operates three community day care centers, three community centers for older adults, Project Reach Youth, and a range of support, training, and education programs including Reach Out and Read, Even Start Family Literacy, Jet to Success and other workforce development programs, Adult Basic Education, and case management.
Throughout its history, LFHC has combined effective health center management and efficient financial operations with substantive community input and engagement to ensure the availability of high quality, culturally competent health care services. This collaborative process has resulted in the development of a range of innovative programs that have significantly impacted the community and come to serve as national models. Noteworthy among these models is LFHC’s post-graduate dental residency program, established in 1974. Today, LFHC sponsors six ADA accredited dental residency programs (General Practice Residency, Advanced Education in General Dentistry, Pediatric Dentistry, Endodontics, Anesthesiology, and Periodontics). Additionally, LFHC is the hub for a nationwide residency program with more than 200 residents who treat patients at health centers in underserved populations in fifteen states and the Caribbean, and participate weekly in a shared academic program via live video teleconferencing.
Other noteworthy programs include:
• Recognized as a level-3 Patient Centered Medical Home by the National Committee for Quality Assurance for our coordination of care.
• Awarded the “Promise Neighborhood Grant” to improve educational opportunities for members of the Sunset Park Community.
• A New York State-funded Community Health Information Technology Adoption collaborative (CHITA), a coalition of CHCs in NYC working in partnership to facilitate the adoption and implementation of Electronic Medical Records
• A Patient Navigator Outreach and Chronic Disease Prevention Demonstration program funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Bureau of Health Professions (one of only six such programs in the nation)
• New York City’s First Family Practice Residency Training Program – pioneered by Dr. Eugene Fanta, who was by named by President Carter “America’s Family Physician of the Year”
• One of the Nation’s First WIC programs - now serves 10,000 mothers and children annually
• Health Plus – One of the First Non-profit Medicaid Managed Care Organizations in NYS; Health Plus now provides insurance to nearly 300,000 enrollees
• One of the First School-Based Health Center Programs in the Country - has grown to include fourteen schools
• One of the nation’s largest school-based oral health programs
• An HHS-Funded Caribbean HIV/AIDS Twinning Initiative - a program in which SPFHC trained providers and built infrastructure in the Caribbean region to treat HIV/AIDS patients
• The Brooklyn Alliance to Strengthen the Safety Net – A HRSA Community Access Program (CAP) Coalition of more than 100 health care providers, faith based and community based organizations working together to eliminate health disparities in Brooklyn
LFHC has been widely recognized for both its local impact and its national leadership. Commendations include:
• 2010 8 Family Health Centers Sites were designated Level 3 Medical Homes by the NCQA for meeting the highest standards in patient centered medical practice
• 2010 Certificate of Recognition from the American Diabetes Association for meeting high standards of self-management diabetes education
• 2008 Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Distinguished Health Care Service Award
• 2002 E-healthcare Leadership Award for Best Web Site (www.momsandkids.org)
• 2001 HRSA Regional Health Administrator’s Award
• 2000 HRSA Cultural Competence Award
• 1998 HRSA National Models That Work Award
• 1997 C. Everett Koop National Health Award
• 1997 New York State Education Award
• 1994 Designated by The American Psychological Association an “Outstanding Model for Training Interns in the Delivery of Multicultural Mental Health Services.”
• Johnson and Johnson Community Health Program Crystal Award
Today, Lutheran Family Health Centers is taking advantage of new technology to provide even greater access to high-quality health care. LFHC has implemented a cutting-edge electronic medical records system that will increase provider efficiency, lower costs, and improve quality of care for all patients. LFHC is also the lead agency in a consortium of health centers (a community health information technology adoption collaborative or CHITA) working together to facilitate EMR implementation throughout New York City. Furthermore, Lutheran Family Health Centers continuously seeks to increase ithe network's capacity to meet the needs of its neighbors – needs that persist as this diverse community continues to grow and change.
