Coming off of Labor Day, today we send our gratitude to Connecticut health centers’ staff members, critical members of Connecticut’s workforce!

Did you know that, in 2016, Connecticut health centers collectively employed almost 3,200 full-time equivalent staff members? Of those, about 5.8% are physicians, including family physicians, internists, pediatricians, and other specialists like OBGYNs; 6.3% are mid-level providers, including nurse practitioners (APRNs), physician assistants (PAs), and certified nurse midwives. According to an article in Athena Insight, FQHCs employ nurse practitioners and physician assistants to a higher degree than other health systems, contributing to the movement towards value-based care.

Health centers are also a major provider of mental health and substance abuse treatment services in Connecticut, with 13.4% of health center employees working in either of those two capacities. Specifically, health centers are critical in the battle against the opioid epidemic. Many of the health centers provide – or are working towards providing – Medication Assisted Treatment, or finding other alternative solutions to assist their patients with overcoming addiction to opioids.

Katie Henley, Senior Program Manager of Workforce Development

In addition to core medical, dental and behavioral health services, health centers also provide many wrap-around or “enabling” services to assist patients with improving their health. Approximately 8.6% of the health center workforce is solely dedicated to providing health education, case management, outreach, eligibility assistance and interpretation services to patients. Whether they are called “community health workers,” “care coordinators,” “patient navigators” or something else, these staff members provide services not found in most health care systems. They help patients remember their upcoming appointments, get enrolled into health insurance or other benefits like SNAP (formally Food Stamps) and even understand how to better manage chronic illnesses. We think they are an important part of what makes health centers so special!

Most health centers are recruiting for at least one position on an ongoing basis – check out CHCACT’s revamped Job Bank to search for jobs by health center, town or job type. The brand-new Job Bank can be found by clicking here: https://www.chcact.org/jobs/.

Thanks to all of the health center staff in our state!