Congressman Brian Higgins (NY-27) has announced the Northwest Buffalo Community Health Care Center as the fortunate recipient of a $559,995 federal grant. This grant was given to the center though the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and approved by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“Providing the best and most efficient health care starts with investing in health care facilities and equipment,” said Congressman Higgins. “At a time when so many Americans go without healthcare due to the economy and high costs of health care, these Recovery Act funds will allow doctors to focus more on being doctors leading to better care for the Black Rock community and Buffalo residents.”
The Northwest Buffalo Community Health Care Center, located on Lawn Ave., has been helping to provide health care to low income families, many of whom are uninsured, since 1987. Northwest is a private, not-for-profit health care center, which caters specifically to those with limited income. Centers like Northwest serve 17 million patients annually, of whom 40% are uninsured.
For this reason, the Health Care Center ARRA Capital Improvement Program released $851 million to over 1,500 health centers like Northwest across the country. The program is meant to support construction, repair, and renovation of these facilities and the services which they provide. Northwest received the grant through an application and review process by the HHS.
The center plans to use much of the reward for upgrading its electronic health records, thereby making the facility more organized and efficient in the services it provides. More than half of the centers which received money through these grants are investing at least some of those funds in similar upgrades of their electronic records and computer systems.