Crescent Community Health Center Awarded Nearly $700,000 in COVID-19 Aid

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Gary Collins, CEO
gcollins@crescentchc.org
563.690.2860

Crescent Community Health Center Awarded Nearly $700,000 in COVID-19 Aid

DUBUQUE, IA, April 8, 2020 – On Friday, March 27, 2020 the President of the United States signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, into law. This unprecedented legislation will help secure the resources needed to keep Americans safe from the coronavirus. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is making these vital health center investments available immediately, as they are a key element of the nation's public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This new funding secured by President Trump will help our community health centers continue the work they're doing on the ground against the coronavirus," said U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar. "HRSA-funded health centers are already playing a critical role by delivering essential services, serving as community testing and screening sites, and alleviating burdens on our nation's emergency rooms and hospitals. HHS will continue bringing every resource we have to support heroic healthcare workers across the diverse settings health centers serve, from our cities to our rural towns."

The funding supports health centers' ability to detect, prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19. The awards will also help maintain or increase health center capacity and staff for the emergent services within the health centers’ scope of work.

Today, Crescent Community Health Center (Crescent) received a notice of award for $691,925 as part of their share of the $1.3 billion awarded by HHS to detect, prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19.  

“This award will enable Crescent to continue seeing our emergent patients during the COVID-19 crisis while investing more resources in Telehealth for all patients, and actively participate in the collaborative community testing efforts currently under development,” said Gary Collins, Crescent Chief Executive Officer. “While Crescent has continued to see our emergent care cases for medical, dental and brain health patients, our ability to do large volume testing has been limited by test availability and turn-around times that are not consistent and can be quite long. Crescent would like to use up to $350,000 (more than half of these funds) toward community/county testing efforts once the plan is fully developed. It is important for all patients in our service area to have accessibility to testing, especially those who are vulnerable, have barriers to care and are at higher risk if they tested positive for COVID-19. While there is no known clinically proven therapeutic treatment or vaccine, we must be able to do a better job in our overall testing as a nation.” 

"HRSA-funded health centers are part of the backbone of our nation's health care system, serving one in 12 people nationwide," said HRSA Administrator Tom Engels. "Increasingly, people are turning to health centers for the first line of defense in combating emergency public health priorities like the novel coronavirus. Health centers will put these resources to immediate use to respond to emerging and evolving local needs and continue to deliver high quality primary health care services to their patients."

HRSA funds nearly 1,400 health centers that operate in nearly 13,000 locations nationwide. Health centers deliver care to the nation's most vulnerable individuals and families, including people experiencing homelessness, agricultural workers, residents of public housing and our nation's veterans. Led by patient-majority boards, these health centers provide affordable, accessible and quality primary health care to over 28 million people a year, regardless of their ability to pay.

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About Crescent
Crescent Community Health Center first opened its doors in October of 2006. Crescent was founded by a group of dedicated board members made up of community stakeholders who identified the need for primary medical and dental care for underserved populations. Since then, Crescent has been providing high-quality primary and preventive medical and dental care to members of the community.