A partnership between the East Bluff Community Center and Heartland Health Services is bringing a new health clinic to the East Bluff.
The clinic will be located in a room at the center, 512 E. Kansas St., and will offer primary care, screening and testing services.
Dewitt Harrell, CEO of Heartland Health Services, said they’re hoping the center will help people with transportation barriers access care.
"A lot of those community members will find right access to health care that they may not have known about before, and we're hopeful that a lot more folks will get a primary care provider and get a home for health care,” he said.
The clinic will be run by clinicians from Heartland’s East Bluff Health Center. Services are charged at a reduced rate and Heartland's Outreach & Enrollment team helps people without insurance pay for services. Community members can make appointments online. Walk-in appointments also will be available.
This will be Heartland Health Services' eighth community health center in the Peoria area, and Harrell said the agency hopes to continue opening new ones.
Across the nation, he said, “31.5 million community members receive services from community health centers. “That is one in 11 people in the U.S. It also includes one in nine children, adolescents. One in four racial and ethnic minorities receive services from community health centers, one in six Medicaid beneficiaries, one in five uninsured persons. Last but not least, listen to this one, one in three people in poverty.”
Tim Cunningham, president of the East Bluff Community Center’s board, said the clinic is a natural expansion for the center.
“Food, nutrition, now health, who knows where it'll go from here, the sky's the limit, but great things start small, and we're starting with one small program here, and we'll see how that changes, morphs and matures over time,” he said.
The room the clinic will use was renovated a couple years ago by a board member’s son for an Eagle Scout project. At the time, the center intended to have a physician set up a clinic there, but that didn't end up happening.
The room, named the “eagle room," is currently being used to store overflow from the food pantry. Heartland Health Services will bring in the necessary supplies to get the clinic up and running.
The opening date is not yet set.
