Community Health Connection, Inc. (CHC) was born from Community HealthNET, a coalition of dedicated community leaders whose mission was to utilize collaborative and integrated approaches to provide health care and support services to the medically needy. The members of Community HealthNET identified the need for an increase in primary and preventive health services for low-income, uninsured and underinsured families in the Northeast Oklahoma area, focusing on the increasing need within the Hispanic community. Since this specific provision was outside of the mission of Community HealthNET, a new Board of Directors was formed called Community Health Connection.
CHC became incorporated in April of 2003 and was designated as a 501(c)(3) in August of 2004. The Board of Directors and the community worked tirelessly establishing a clinic at the site of the abandoned Kendall-Whittier Kindergarten building. With over 6,000 community volunteer hours and numerous donations, CHC began providing services at 68 North Lewis in September of 2004. Services at this site were available on Wednesday evenings and Saturdays. With the exception of contracting with a Nurse Practitioner to provide the direct patient care, all services at the Kendall-Whittier site were provided by volunteers. It was during this time that the Board of Directors applied for, and was granted, 330 Community Health Center funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of Primary Health Care, Health Resources and Services Administration.
The first employees were hired in November of 2005. The Executive Director was charged with opening a fully functioning clinic by January 2006 at the new site located at 9912 East 21st Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Staff was hired and trained, equipment was purchased or solicited by donation, and everything was in place for the opening on January 18, 2006.
Since the clinic’s opening, CHC has grown exponentially. CHC now operates three (3) facilities, one at 2321 East 3rd Street, one at 13702 East 46th Place South inside the Union Public School’s Rosa Parks Elementary School and our newest location at 12020 East 31st Street on the Ellen Ochoa Elementary school campus which opened in April of 2020 CHC now employs over eighty (100) staff members, of which, over eighty-five percent (85%) are bilingual.
In 2020, CHC served a total of 14,722 unique patients, 8,492 of which were uninsured, 11,900 identified themselves as Hispanic and/or Latino.
Community Health Connection has been recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) as a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) and addresses the need for health services in the community and its target population by continuing to offer accessible, affordable, culturally appropriate, and comprehensive primary care services, including medical, obstetrics, pediatrics, behavioral, and oral health.