UNM Health Sciences Center’s model for primary care and community health has proven so successful that it has received funding to be duplicated in four other states.
The Health Extension Rural Offices (HEROs) program received a $220,000 grant from the Commonwealth Fund to replicate the model in Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky and Oregon. The funds provide independent primary care practices across the state with access to UNMHSC resources, according to Carolina Nkouaga, program-planning manager at the Office of Community Health.
“The New Mexico health extension model is really about how you partner with communities and [determine] what their health needs are to improve the health of the whole state,” she said.
The grant provides funds for UNMHSC to develop online toolkits and resources for other states to replicate the HEROs model, which will focus on areas including medical care, research and education.
Francisco Ronquillo, HEROs central region coordinator, said the program examines how social issues factor into a person’s health.
“One of the luxuries of being part of health extension is that we do not only focus on health and health services,” he said. “We also look at social determinants of health. So we look at security issues, education, unemployment and immigration issues.”
HEROs agents are placed in different communities around the state. The agents identify the community’s needs and act as local resources, Ronquillo said. Regional coordinators connect the agents and their communities to UNMHSC resources.
Nikouaga said the model has been successful so far and hopes it will continue to spread to other states.
“What we envision is that this helps to build a movement around the whole country, because once they all start to do it, then people start to pay attention, and it can be replicated everywhere,” she said.
