SAMARITAN HEALTH CENTER INC

Our vision is to be a leader in providing compassionate, comprehensive, and affordable health care, with excellence, to the underserved in our community.

Our goals:
1. Through donated talent and resources, we work to help eliminate our community's health disparities.
2. We provide accessible, holistic health care that focuses on physical needs, as well as the social, emotional, and spiritual issues that affect health.

GOAL 1: Through donated talent and resources, we work to help eliminate our community's health disparities.
STRATEGY #1: Engage skilled volunteers in our medical, dental, and vision programs.
STRATEGY #2: Collaborate with companies that provide donated products and services that benefit our patients.
STRATEGY #3: Collaborate with companies that provide discounted products and services to keep our costs low – enabling us to continue offering free services.

GOAL 2: We provide accessible, holistic health care that focuses on physical needs, as well as the social, emotional, and spiritual issues that affect health.
STRATEGY #1: Provide both stand-alone and mobile clinics to make free care more accessible to individuals in the community.
STRATEGY #2: Offer care management and wrap-around services at both clinics.
STRATEGY #3: Provide staff and volunteer providers additional time to spend at each patient appointment—ensuring that any language barriers, multiple concerns, and previously unaddressed diagnoses can be addressed thoroughly and to the patient’s satisfaction.

We are motivated by the love God has shown us through Jesus Christ and want to respond to His love for our neighbor by providing health care to those who cannot afford it.

Way back in the early 1990’s, Dr. Mark Piehl had a dream to establish a Christian health clinic in downtown Durham. He initially met with a small group of friends in a Bible study and shared that dream, but the timing was not right. In 2007, the Board of Directors was initially recruited to lay the groundwork for this long-anticipated clinic. In 2008, the Board of Directors committed to starting a Christian medical ministry in the heart of Durham. The board committed to building a faith-based, volunteer-driven clinic, and to a clinic that was a mentoring place for the next generation of healthcare professionals. The program began with a Thursday evening volunteer medical clinic. Today, Samaritan Health Center is blessed to have 12 paid staff members and an active Board of Directors in place to carry out the mission of promoting physical, mental and spiritual health to the whole person by providing affordable, high-quality health care to the uninsured and underinsured.

SHC has been caring for patients since we opened in 2009, and we have an established reputation for compassionate, accessible care for the uninsured in the Durham, NC community.

We are equipped to meet our goals because:
1. Our programs align with our mission, vision, and goals and provide much-needed health care resources to people who cannot afford them – specifically medical, dental, and vision services.
2. We are led by a team of expert professionals, our Executive Director and 14 member Board of Directors, who are forward-thinking and provide guidance on how to continue meeting our mission.
3. We have a passionate staff of employees and volunteers who are committed to carrying out the activities required to support our patients.
4. We collaborate and partner with strategic organizations that provide free or discounted products and services, specialty care outside of our services (ex. mental health care), advocacy and training support for similar clinics, and much more.
5. We have strong organizational systems that provide us with a solid foundation and framework within which we function effectively – including accounting, legal accountability, fundraising plans, etc.

Since 2009, more than 7,000 patients have been cared for by SHC. In fact, we have offered more than 35,600 visits to homeless and low-income individuals for medical, dental, and vision services since that time.

A few of our accomplishments include:
- More than doubling the number of patients served since 2010 (from 491 to 995 in 2017).
- Opening two new clinics.
- Rolling out a Mobile Clinic in 2011 in order to take care to patients where they are.
- Securing our first state grant, recognizing our focus on the underserved and on clinical performance indicators.
- Securing an electronic health record that eases collaboration for our patients’ care with other safety net providers (such as local hospitals).

Moving forward, our longer-term plans will include:
1. Extending clinic hours and enabling us to offer comprehensive care at full-time hours.
2. Addressing social determinants of health through onsite services and external partnerships
3. Increasing community collaboration and advocacy to serve the needs of our patients
4. Increasing organizational visibility