Heartland Health Centers is a federally qualified health center (FQHC) with more than15 locations in Chicago. We visited the one at Devon.
It is the only healthcare center that achieved LEED Platinum in Illinois. In order to achieve that goal, the health center tried to be as environmentally sustainable as it could be. Such as reuse the material of the former site, which was a funeral home (Marble on the front desk and stones on the outside wall are both repurpose of the materials); roof with solar panels; and geothermal system.
Heartland Health Centers at Devon has 12 exam rooms for primary care and behavioral health care, and a community center for community activities. They provide primary care, chronic care, preventative care, and health education for the community.
Our host was Molly Bougearel, she gave us a presentation about Heartland Health Centers system.
As she mentioned, the most important things in HHC are community, quality, and low cost. Even though HHC is a small healthcare center, they are still trying to provide as much as service they could do for the community with a low cost and a high quality. As a not for profit health center, 39% of the income from government grants,56% from patient insurance. 59% of their revenue is from Medicaid.
Molly said the big challenge was how to retain and recruit providers to work at HHC, especially for a small community health center like Heartland. That is why she impressed me just like Katherine Darnstadt from Latent Design did: they are all trying to take the responsibility to make the community/society better, even from a very small move.
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