Mission: Family health center of worcester (fhcw) is a joint commission accredited, federally-qualified community health center that improves the health and well-being of traditionally underserved and culturally diverse populations in the greater worcester area by providing accessible, high-quality, comprehensive primary care, dental care and social services to individuals and families regardless of their ability to pay.

Programs: Primary health care services - fhcw's team is comprised of more than 345 medical, dental, social service and other clinical providers, pharmacists, nutritionists, interpreters, health benefits advisors and volunteers who serve our patients with respect and compassion. We provide services in 37 languages, including: albanian, arabic, burmese, farsi, french, german, cambodian, chinese, creole, hindi, kaba, khmer, nepali, polish, portuguese, russian, sango, spanish, swedish, somali, swahili, twi, urdu, vietnamese and more. In fy 2015, we served 38,500 individuals with medical, dental, vision, mental health and social services, nutrition counseling, health benefits advising and school-based health services through 126,000+ clinical visits and almost 35,000 nutrition visits for low-income clients. 97% of our patients have incomes below 200% of poverty and 87% live below 100% of poverty. 45% of our patients are best served in a language other than english. Fhcw attained the national center of quality assurance (ncqa) patient centered medical home level 2 recognition on october 18, 2013 and are now working to achieve level 3, ncqa's highest level of recognition, which we anticipate accomplishing in the fall of 2015. Ncqa is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality and coordination of care in the nation's health system. Pcmh standards emphasize the use of systematic, patient-centered and coordinated care that supports access, communication and patient involvement. Fhcw provides high quality, comprehensive, culturally competent, patient-centered primary medical care (family medicine), dental care, behavioral/mental health services, urgent/same-day/walk-in care, refugee/immigrant health services, homeless families program, hiv/aids integrated care program, o/b prenatal care and delivery program, vision services, pharmacy, lab, radiology (x-ray, ultrasound, digital mammography), outpatient suboxone treatment, centering pregnancy group prenatal care, baby cafe to support new mothers, women infants and children (wic) nutrition program for the region, teen health clinic, health education outreach, and school-based health services at 7 public school locations in worcester and webster. Fhcw provides services in a family practice model where every patient is seen in the context of his/her family, culture and community. To assure patient access to care, fhcw offers an array of wraparound enabling services including health benefits advising (multilingual certified applications counselors), health education outreach, medical interpretation and cultural case management, nursing care management, chronic disease care coordination, transportation assistance, emergency food vouchers, patient navigation, and connection to community-based support services. Fhcw provides services at 15 locations in worcester, millbury, southbridge, and webster. Fhcw's main clinical and administrative site is located at 26 queen street in downtown worcester, formerly the home of worcester city hospital. Our newest site in southbridge at 32 orchard street opened on march 31, 2014 to meet the primary care needs of medically underserved low-income residents in the southbridge area. It has become evident that we need to address the oral health needs of current patients and other low-income southbridge area residents and we expect to begin offering dental services in southbridge in july 2015. Fhcw is an academic health center committed to workforce development to help meet the need for providers to work in underserved communities through our family medicine residency (since 1974), family nurse practitioner residency (since 2009), advanced education in general dentistry residency (since 2005), post-doctoral psychology fellowship, social work (msw) internship program, doctor of pharmacy internship program, and training programs for medical students, nurses, phlebotomists, and optometrists (2014). Our most recent academic training program, implemented in collaboration with the ma college of pharmacy & health sciences (mcphs), trains graduate optometry students. Our new vision clinic opened for patient care on may 27, 2014. We now train 62 graduate students per semester, who are accompanied by faculty preceptors on rotation, conducting eye exams for up to 64 patients in one and a half hour visits per week. Each exam is conducted by 2 students and a preceptor and offers optometrists the opportunity to view a wide range of health conditions impacting vision. A major accomplishment in fy'15 was the opening of our new optical retail shop, which connects low-income patients to affordable eyewear without regard for ability to pay, in december 2014.

pharmacy - provides prescription drugs to adults and children.

dental - adult and pediatric dental services - in fiscal year 2015,family health center of worcester performed 19,979 dental visits.