Online Community for Community Health Centers

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I am excited about this new online forum for FQHCs. I think it has a lot of potential and encourage other CHC and PCA colleagues to join. Best,

From: D Weinman [mailto:SDWeinman@...] Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 1:26 PMAdministrator@...Subject: Online Community for Community Health Centers

Dear CHC Professional

You are receiving this email because of an association with Community Health Centers. If you have received this in error, if you receive duplicate emails, or you just want us to go away, please notify us at Administrator@... and we will correct our database. If you are someone I know personally, I apologize for the generic nature of this email, but I have amassed thousands of email addresses over the years, and time as always is limited.

Over the past several years I have seen online communities flourish around many subjects. We join others who drive the same vehicles, listen to the same music, have common hobbies and suffer from similar ailments. However there was still none devoted to the FQHC family. With FQHC.org we finally have a place in cyberspace to call our own.

I have worked in this industry for nearly 25 years. I have designed and implemented practice management software, been an IT director, CFO, COO, CEO (both of a health center and a large health center network). I have written grants, helped new CHCs get started, trained boards and consulted with many FQHCs. I had the opportunity to do a fair amount of consulting for BPHC. Through all that I have managed to stay with the same large health center in Florida where it all started for me in 1984. I love this movement that I have devoted my life to.

Over the years I have met many professionals who have a lot of knowledge to share. At countless meetings I have by happenstance met people who continue to amaze me with what they can teach me. Yet I can never shake the feeling that for every one I meet, there are 100 more that I never meet. This seems to be borne out by the fact that even after all these years, I still often meet others who have been around for a long time who I don’t yet know. This community is designed to bring us together.

Membership is free. In order to make FQHC.org a place for people involved in our industry, we are going to verify that everyone in the community has a legitimate interest in our industry. I have paid for the development and hosting of the system out of my own pocket. In order to eventually make the community self supporting, there will be paid sponsorships. My pledge to the community is that we will keep the sponsorship and the editorial comments separate. All paid endorsements will be clearly identified.

We have started with a few basic topic areas. The plan is to expand these at the request of the membership. We are going to be looking for leaders in various content areas. If you have an interest in a particular topic, please contact me at SDWeinman@... and I will see what I can do about adding it.

Right now we have the ability the add forums for individual topics and organizations. Access can be restricted to users who are entitled to see the content. For example we will create a forum for each state, which will be restricted to the health centers for that state. Individual Health Centers, Networks, committees, etc. can each have their own areas, accessible only to appropriate members. The possibilities are endless!

In order to take a look at the site, just go to www.fqhc.org ... Until you register, you will not have access to any of the forums. People are finding us through search engines, and an invitation to join we sent last week to CHC CEOs across the country yielded over 70 new members! Right now we are already showing up on the first page of search results on “FQHC” in Google. Please sign up for the site and join the community, and share the site with your colleagues. Above all, please post your questions and comments. Once we start using it, this should be a very valuable resource to us all.

D Weinman

President and CEO

Community Health Solutions, Inc.

WWW.FQHC.ORG