St. Jude Neighborhood Health Center became a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in 2013. Prior to attaining FQHC status, St. Jude Neighborhood Health Center (SJNHC) operated as a department of St. Jude Medical Center, an acute care hospital in Fullerton, California. In the 1980s the hospital recognized an increase in pregnant patients presenting at the hospital to deliver their babies, but these expectant mothers had not received prenatal care. The hospital responded to this trend by establishing a prenatal clinic on a mobile van, serving the City of Fullerton and neighboring cities. Quickly the clinic providers recognized children and adults in need of care not related to pregnancy and services began to expand. In 2007, SJNHC established its first non-mobile medical clinic location in Richman Park, a City of Fullerton park. The City Council granted use of park land and the hospital funded the construction of the building. With this new fixed community site, dental services were soon intorduced followed later by behavioral health care.
Through the evolution of the SJNHC, a pediatric dental clinic operated by the Boys and Girls Club of Buena Park was transfered under the operation of SJNHC in the 1990s. In the Spring of 2015 a pediatric medical clinic was established at Topaz Elementary School in Fullerton aimed at providing healthcare to a high-density, low-income community in partnership with the school district. In May 2015, SJNHC assumed operation of the long-operating La Amistad Health Center and Puente a la Salud mobile dental and vision clinics, all based in the City of Orange. La Amistad and Puente a la Salud were established in the 1980s by St. Joseph Hospital of Orange to serve the low-income and unisured in the citieis of Orange, Santa Ana and Garden Grove, California. Today, St. Jude Neighborhood Health Centers providers high-quality health care to low-income, primarily uninsured, families residing in central and northern Orange County.
SJNHC is recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance as a Patient Centered Medical Home and HRSA recognized SJNHC as Health Center Quality Leader in 2018.
