Canada Community Health Centers (CHCs) have existed in
Ontario for more than 40 years. Most CHC's consist of an interdisciplinary team of health care providers using electronic health records. In
Quebec, local community services centers known by their French acronym,
CLSC, offer routine health and social services, including consultations with
general practitioners with and without an appointment.
China ,
Beijing in 2017 In China there are, as of 2011, 32,812 community health centers and 37,374
township health centers.
Greece Health Centers are a part of the Primary Health Care of the
National Healthcare System. They were created by the founding law of the NHS (1397/1983) by the first government of
Andreas Papandreou. Today there are operated 322 Health Centers and 239 Local Health Units for the purpose of prevention, treatment and the rehabilitation of the patients.
Indonesia ,
Indonesia. Puskesmas (, ) are government-mandated community health clinics located across
Indonesia. They are overseen by the Indonesian
Ministry of Health and provide healthcare for the population on sub-district level. The concept was designed by
Johannes Leimena, the third Indonesian Minister of Health, and be realized by
G. A. Siwabessy in
New Order era. Community and preventive health programs formed another component of Indonesia's health system. There is approximately 9718 Puskesmas around the country according to the Ministry of Health of Indonesia.
Portugal The health center () was the basic community
primary healthcare unit of the
National Health Service of
Portugal, as well as acting as the local
public health authority. Usually, each health center covered the area of one of the Portuguese municipalities, but municipalities with over 15 000 habitants could be covered by more than one of these centers. Health centers were staffed with
general practitioners,
public health physicians,
nurses,
social workers and administrative personnel. In 2008, the more than 300 health centers were aggregated into around 70 health center groups (
agrupamentos de centros de saúde) or ACES. Each ACES includes several
family and personalized healthcare units, these being now the basic primary health care providers of the Portuguese National Health Service. Besides family health care services, the ACES also include
public health,
community health and other specialized units, as well as basic medical emergency services. Some of the ACES were grouped with hospital units into experimental local health units (
unidades locais de saúde) or ULS. The ULS are intended to increase the coordination between the primary and the secondary healthcare, through both of these services being provided by the same health unit.
United Kingdom Bertrand Dawson was commissioned by
Christopher Addison to produce a report on "schemes requisite for the systematised provision of such forms of medical and allied services as should... be available for the inhabitants of a given area". The Interim Report on the Future Provision of Medical and Allied Services was produced in 1920, though no further report ever appeared. The report laid down detailed plans for a network of Primary and Secondary Health Centres, together with detailed architectural drawings of different sorts of centers. By 1939 the term health center was widely used to refer to new buildings housing local health authority services. The Dawson report was very influential in debates about the
National Health Service when it was set up in 1948, but few centers were built because "it was not practicable for local authorities to establish health centers without the full compliance of general practitioners" – which was not forthcoming. Far more attention and resources were devoted to hospital services than to primary care. From 1948 to 1974 local authorities were responsible for the building of health centers. A well known center was opened at
Woodberry Down in October 1952. It had provision for 6 GPs, 2 dentists, a pharmacist and two nurses. It cost about £163,000, which included the cost of a day nursery and child guidance clinic. This was regarded as extravagant and used as an excuse by critics for not building more.
Harlow, where 4 centers were built by the new town corporation, was the only community in Britain served exclusively by doctors working from health centers. In 1965 there were only 30 health centers in England and Wales, and 3 in Scotland. By 1974 there were 566 in England, 29 in Wales and 59 in Scotland. After the
National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973, responsibility for promoting health centers was transferred to Area Health Authorities and there were renewed calls to establish more Health Centres. It was suggested that these centers could arrange alternative medical care for patients "when their doctor is off duty, or for emergency calls when he is engaged elsewhere". Medically Underserved Areas/Populations are areas or populations designated by the
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as having: too few primary care providers, high infant mortality, high poverty and/or high elderly population. Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) are designated by HRSA as having shortages of primary medical care, dental or mental health providers and may be geographic (a county or service area), demographic (low income population) or institutional (comprehensive health center, federally qualified health center or other public facility). == See also ==