Every member of the community will be assured access to available and affordable healthcare and social services to ensure the continued development of a productive, healthy community.

To provide preventive and primary healthcare and social services with managed referrals, creative health education and community outreach based on an empowerment model for an uninsured and underserved population.

Since 1990, Community Health-In-Partnership Services (CHIPS) has been providing primary care, health screenings, wellness programs and support groups to the underserved and uninsured at its facilities on North Grand. CHIPS collaborates with neighborhood businesses, schools, churches, apartment communities and others to bring health education, and health screenings and assessments to a high risk, predominately African American population. More recently, CHIPS has integrated mental health screenings, acupuncture and therapeutic massage into its primary care model, and provides in-home care services.

At CHIPS, clients are defined not by their illness, but by their ability to attain wellness. CHIPS' clinical and outreach staff work with each client to set personal objectives that will assist them in reaching their health and wellness goals. CHIPS then connects clients to the services they need through managed referrals to make sure that healthcare is satisfactorily accessed. Healthcare services at CHIPS are provided by a volunteer health team of physicians, nurses, dentists, social workers and other health and lay professionals supported by paid staff. Clients receive care regardless of their ability to pay.

CHIPS' unique five-pronged approach to eliminating health disparities and improving access to care - Outreach, Assessment, Treatment, Managed Referrals and Health Education has received national recognition from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. CHIPS received the RWJ Foundation's Community Health Leadership Award in 2004.

The CHIPS Model

A health home serving some of the city's poorest neighborhoods, staffed by volunteer doctors, where no one is turned away because of inability to pay the modest access fee.

Outreach and Health Education programs that go where the people are - banks, barbershops, churches - to do health screenings and identify individuals at risk.

Managed Referrals - guiding the uninsured and underserved through the healthcare safety-net maze.

Collaboration with others to make healthcare and social services accessible and affordable.