Susan Hutson, director of marketing and development for Premier Community Healthcare Group, Inc. in Dade City, Fla., posted a blog regarding the Collaborative's policy research brief, “Strengthening Primary Care to Bend the Cost Curve: The Expansion of Community Health Centers Through Health Reform.”

In this blog, Floyd Malveaux, MD, PhD, executive director of the Merck Childhood Asthma Network, Inc. (MCAN), focuses on the need for sound public health principles to improve the lives of children and others with asthma. Dr. Malveaux references the recent report by The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, supported by MCAN and the RCHN Community Health Foundation (RCHN CHF), which provides guidance on what be done on the national level.

The result of a year-long investigation, a new report, entitled Changing pO2licy: The Elements for Improving Childhood Asthma Outcomes, from The George Washington University, School of Public Health and Health Services supported by the RCHN Community Health Foundation and the Merck Childhood Asthma Network, Inc. finds that more than 1 million children with asthma remain uninsured and at risk for inadequate care. Through a series of moving personal stories, the following video brings into focus the scope and severity of the escalating problem of childhood asthma – the single most common chronic disease among children.

WASHINGTON and NEW YORK – Two of the pressing challenges facing the nation with the enactment of health care reform are whether the U.S. will have enough primary care providers and whether health care costs can be contained. A new analysis released by the Geiger Gibson/ RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, indicates that the expansion of community health centers will make a major contribution towards addressing both problems.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued a news release in conjunction with the press briefing he sponsored to announce the Collaborative’s report, Strengthening Primary Care to Bend the Cost Curve: The Expansion of Community Health Centers Through Health Reform.

The National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) issued a release to announce the Capitol Hill briefing held June 30 to present the Collaborative’s report, Strengthening Primary Care to Bend the Cost Curve: The Expansion of Community Health Centers Through Health Reform, focusing on the impact of community health center expansion on health care access and long-term health care costs.

This webcast will feature Dr. Leighton Ku, lead author of the report “Strengthening Primary Care to Bend the Cost Curve: The Expansion of Community Health Centers Through Health Reform,” recently released by the Geiger-Gibson/ RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative.

Joining Dr. Ku to provide expert commentary will be Dan Hawkins, Sr. Vice President of the National Association of Community Health Centers. This report indicates that the expansion of community health centers will make a major contribution toward bolstering the capacity of the nation’s primary care system and reducing the long term growth in health care costs by increasing the number of patients receiving primary care at CHCs by at least 18 million by the end of the decade, and reducing total national medical costs by more than $180 billion over the next ten years.

To register, please click on this link to the registration page at our partner site, Clinical Directors Network : www.CDNetwork.org/RCHN