Virginia Health Care Foundation

Richmond, VA – The Virginia Health Care Foundation (VHCF) has awarded the following grants totaling over $1.5 million to 18 health safety net organizations throughout Virginia to increase access to medical, dental, behavioral health, vision, and pharmacy services for uninsured and medically underserved Virginians.

Grantees and projects awarded follow:

Primary Medical Care

• The Eastern Shore Rural Health System (ESRHS) – $54,000 to help support a full-time Physician Assistant at the Onley Community Health Center, ESRHS’ busiest location. This will significantly expand the Center’s capacity to provide acute visits, preventive care, and comprehensive primary care services.
• The Ledwith-Lewis Free Clinic (LLFC) – $10,799 to help support a part-time Nurse Practitioner, the Clinic’s first paid provider. She will supplement the work of the Clinic’s volunteer providers by expanding clinic hours and treating several hundred additional patients each year.
• Richmond City Health District – $41,107 to establish a Health Resource Center at the Southwood Apartment Community. As the fifth VHCF-funded Resource Center, Southwood will provide women’s health services, screenings for sexually transmitted infections, educational classes, as well as referrals to local health safety net providers and other essential medical resources.

Dental Care

• Arlington Free Clinic (AFC) – $220,000 to renovate its space to include dental care and to purchase three new onsite dental operatories. Once construction is complete, these new dental operatories will more than triple the capacity of the clinic’s limited off-site dental program.  AFC expects to provide over 3,000 free dental visits to low-income, uninsured residents of Arlington County in the first year alone.
• Augusta Regional Clinic (ARC) – $22,863 to contract with a part-time Endodonist and Dental Assistant who will provide specialty oral health services, including root canal therapy, dental surgery, and the treatment of dental trauma for local children, pregnant women, and uninsured adults.  This will eliminate long wait times for ARC dental appointments.
• Charlottesville Free Clinic (CFC) – $20,344 to help support a part-time dental hygienist, significantly expanding the hours available for dental hygiene appointments each year.
• CrossOver Healthcare Ministry – $22,500 to help support a Dental Hygienist who will treat approximately 700 patients annually, more than doubling the capacity of CrossOver’s previous dental hygiene services.
• Harrisonburg Community Health Center (HCHC) – $122,250 to help support a full-time dentist and part-time dental hygienist at HCHC’s newly expanded dental clinic. This serves an additional 1,700 patients each year, including homeless adults and children.
• Northern Virginia Dental Clinic (NVDC) – $91,500 to help support two part-time Dentists, a part-time Dental Hygienist, and a full-time Dental Assistant, enabling NVDC to serve 500 more patients.
• Rockbridge Area Health Center (RAHC) – $168,750 to hire a full-time dentist who will provide comprehensive dental services at RAHC’s new satellite dental clinic in Buena Vista and southern Rockbridge County. The new clinic is expected to provide dental services to more than 1,100 new patients in its first year alone.
• VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital (CMH) – $235,000 to build and outfit two dental operatories and purchase needed equipment for its new Family Dental & Specialty Center. Once open in mid-2018, this center will be able to provide dental care five days per week.  It expects more than 9,000 dental visits in the first year of operating, significantly increasing the availability of oral health care in and around South Hill and Mecklenburg County.

Behavioral Health Care

• ChildSavers – $75,619 to help support two Behavioral Health Clinicians and expanded hours for a Pediatric Psychiatrist to provide trauma-informed mental health services to low-income children in Richmond. Together, the clinicians and psychiatrist create personalized treatment plans including therapy, assessments, and treatments designed to address each child’s individual experience of trauma and build positive coping and resiliency skills.
• The Virginia Treatment Center for Children (VTCC) – $116,377 to hire an additional Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner at VTCC’s new, expanded facility, who will provide a variety of clinical services, consultations, and training on behavioral health integration for primary care physicians.  This will increase statewide availability of psychiatric services for teenage children with complex mental health concerns including anxiety, depression, and trauma.
• Rockbridge Area Health Center (RAHC) – $87,048 to help support the salary and benefits of a full-time Licensed Professional Counselor, a full-time Social Worker, and a part-time Psychiatrist. In addition to providing behavioral health services to an estimated 700 new patients each year, this grant enables the Center to help local schools and the RAISE project by providing early intervention services for families of children with suspected developmental delays.
• Sinclair Health Clinic (SHC) – $31,409 to help support the salary and benefits of a full-time Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.

Pharmacy:

• NOVA ScriptsCentral, Inc. (NSC) – $27,605 to hire a part-time Pharmacist, who will fill thousands of additional prescriptions each year for the many patients of NSC’s 14 partner clinics located in Arlington, Fairfax, Loudon, and Prince William Counties as well as the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park.

Vision:

• Vision to Learn (VTL) – $50,000 to purchase a mobile Vision Van and bring VTL’s innovative program to Richmond. The Vision Van and its optometrist and optician team will visit each of the 37 Richmond Public Schools where 50% or more of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch programs to determine which students need glasses and provide those glasses for free.  The VHCF-funded Vision Van is expected to provide glasses to over 4,000 Richmond children each year.

Other Initiatives:

• RxPartnership (RxP) – $40,000 to help bring RxP’s Access to Medication Program (AMP) to at least three new Virginia health safety net clinics. AMP utilizes a central-fill pharmacy approach to purchase and distribute prescription medications to clinics and eligible patients at a significant discount.
• Virginia Association of Free & Charitable Clinics (VAFCC) – $25,000 to support VAFCC’s new Clinic Data Solutions (CDS) initiative, which is designed to help free and charitable clinics throughout Virginia improve their data collection systems and reporting procedures.

 

Last Updated on March 5, 2018