Ingham County is one of 13 local learning laboratories working to improve access to healthcare and healthcare quality as part of Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved, a five-year, national initiative by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Community Voices was launched in 1998, given the unlikelihood that universal health coverage would be achieved within the next five years and that new steps were needed to ensure the survival of safety-net providers. Building up from the community level, the initiative will give the underserved a voice and help ensure that health care access and quality are part of the national debate. The Goal of Ingham Access to Health and Community Voices To increase access to healthcare for the underserved by:
• Establishing an Organized System of Care - one in which every uninsured person in Ingham County has access to a healthcare coverage strategy that is non-stigmatizing, user-friendly, and affordable.

To do this, we must:
• Build a broad base of community support for universal access;

• Establish sustainable funding mechanisms that fairly distribute the financing of healthcare for the uninsured among stakeholder groups;

 • Develop new coverage options and adequate infrastructure to maintain them.

 • Mobilizing neighborhoods and communities to improve health access and positively impact the determinants of health as experienced by their residents. To do this, we must:

• Empower residents of neighborhoods and communities to identify health indicators and strategies for impacting them )both policy change and new programming);

• Assist in establishing sustainable, positive working relationships between neighborhood and community stakeholders (including residents, associations, faith institutions, schools, businesses, providers, and funding entities)

 • Provide universal access to information needed by neighborhoods and communities to advance their strategies for improving access to health, and measure their progress.

Access To Health Coordinator Doak Bloss, Ingham County Health Department 5303 South Cedar, Lansing Phone (517) 887-4503 Fax (517) 887-4310