About NCHealthcareHelp.org

This website is maintained by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine. Financial support for the website is generously provided by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation and The Duke Endowment through its Care+Share initiative.

The idea behind this website stemmed from the NC IOM Task Force on the Healthcare Safety Net, funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust. One of the recommendations from this Task Force’s final report in 2005 was the creation of a safety net coordinating council, which would ensure that North Carolina safety net organizations would have a forum in which to exchange ideas and advance their common mission: providing free and reduced cost healthcare services to North Carolina residents. The Safety Net Advisory Council (or “SNAC”) was created in 2005 to act as a communication device among safety net organizations throughout North Carolina.   One of its first acts was to collect data on safety net providers throughout the state. As valuable as these data were, there was unfortunately no great method to allow North Carolinians to search for a nearby provider. The current system took over a year to design, develop, test, and launch.

The SNAC, which was critical in the design and maintenance of this site, currently consists of representatives from the following organizations:

• North Carolina Area Health Education Centers (AHEC)
• North Carolina Association of Free Clinics
• Care Share Health Alliance
• North Carolina Community Health Center Association
• North Carolina Division of Public Health
• North Carolina Hospital Association
• North Carolina Medical Society Foundation
• North Carolina Office of Rural Health and Community Care

Safety net providers -- over 300 when the site was launched -- across North Carolina have provided information about their services to help North Carolinians find the healthcare they need. A flyer describing the website is available (PDF format).

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