Event Part of National Campaign Focusing on One of the Bright Spots of Health Reform

The HAWC Community Health Center is marking National Health Center Week 2010 (NHCW) with a Community Information Awareness Day on Saturday, August 21, 2010 from 7:00 – 2:00. The HAWC Community Awareness Information Day will be held at Jack’s Restaurant and Cantina, 2325 Kietzke Lane, Reno.  Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign along with Congressman Dean Heller have been invited to discuss national health care reform and to give out prizes to youth ages 10 and younger who have entered the coloring contest. The HAWC Community Information Awareness Day is part of a weeklong campaign to raise awareness about the mission and accomplishments of America’s Health Centers. Jack’s Restaurant and Cantina will donate 20% of the day’s proceeds to the HAWC Patient Specialty Care Fund.

The HAWC Community Information Awareness Day is being sponsored in part by Pfizer Helpful Answers^® Sharing the Care™ Program, which offers free Pfizer medicines for eligible patients at participating community health centers.

One of the bright spots in America’s health care system, Community Health Centers, are the family doctor to over 20 million people at 8,000 sites nationwide. Their critical role in providing quality primary care has been widely praised by bipartisan Congressional leaders and the last two Presidential Administrations. Health centers have also been in the public spotlight because now more than ever the uninsured and casualties of the economic recession are seeking their services. That is why funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have made it possible for health centers to serve over two million patients, and over one million uninsured patients. And with health reform, the U.S. health care system will save up to $122 billion in total health care costs between 2011 and 2015 with the expansion of health centers, according to an analysis by the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.

“Every day in our waiting rooms I witness the value of having a health care home,” said Dr. Michael Rodolico, HAWC Executive Director.  “When people have a place to go for regular care, they use it and stay healthy. We provide a range of services onsite – primary care services, pediatrics, pharmacy, dentistry, chiropractic, laboratory, X-ray, substance abuse, and mental health services. Our patients not only get the care they need under one roof, but they are treated as individuals, with dignity and respect. This is what health care should be, and what we celebrate during National Health Center Week.”

“Celebrating America's Health Centers: Turning the Vision into Reality” is the theme for NHCW. This theme highlights the program’s 45-year record of providing high quality, cost-effective health care, as well as the future of health care for the community of Reno and across the nation. Health centers will expand their capacity to double the number of patients to 40 million in five years under health reform, saving the U.S. health care system as much as $300 billion over the next ten years by treating people before they get sick and require costlier care at a hospital.

National Health Center Week is sponsored by the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). To find out more about health centers and their role in health care reform, please visit www.nachc.com. To find out more about National Health Center Week, visit www.healthcenterweek.org. To find out more about the HAWC Community Health Center, feel free to look around this website.

Contact Info:

Sharon Nipp

1450 Ridgeview Drive, Ste 200

Reno, NV 89519

(775)336-3065

snipp@hawcinc.org