The National Association of Community Health Centers today presented Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) with the Distinguished Community Health Defender Award for his leadership and support of health care services to underserved communities in New Jersey.

    “Community health centers provide essential primary and preventive care services,” said Smith, who secured the designation of a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) for Ocean Health Initiative (OHI) in 2005 and Lakewood’s CHEMED in 2009.  “They allow low to middle income Americans to continue to receive high quality health services, even if they have fallen on harder times, and reduce further costs to an already overburdened health care system.”

    Smith was praised for his “consistent efforts to preserve and strengthen America’s Health Centers, which deliver high quality, cost-effective primary and preventive health care in underserved communities nationwide.”

    “OHI and CHEMED, along with the over 9,000 community health centers across the country, provide comprehensive and reliable health services to the less fortunate in an effective and efficient matter,” Smith said.  “The Good Samaritans at FQHCs provide the quality of care that is worthy of robust federal assistance.”

    Community Health Centers are locally-managed, non-profit entities that provide primary care, oral, behavioral, and pharmacy services in some of the most underserved rural and urban areas. Since 2002, they have expanded health care access from 11 million patients to 22 million patients in communities nationwide. By specializing in providing primary and preventive health care to their patients, Health Centers produce $24 billion in annual health systems savings.

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