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KEYSTONE HEALTH CENTER CELEBRATES ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY
(Chambersburg, PA) -- Keystone Health Center, a not-for-profit Community Health Center in Chambersburg, PA, is proud to announce the 20th anniversary of its founding. As a Community Health Center, Keystone provides affordable, accessible and compassionate medical, dental and support services to individuals and families, regardless of their ability to pay and even if they have no health insurance. In 1986, Joanne Cochran, Keystone’s President and CEO, co-founded the center to provide health care to the migrant farmworkers in Franklin County. The organization started as a group of three community volunteers who provided care to farmworkers two evenings a week from July to November. “After several seasons, it became vividly apparent that there were needy people in our community with just as many problems as the migrant and seasonal farmworkers,” said Cochran. This lead Keystone to expand its mission to provide care to all residents of the area and to expand to a full-time, year-round practice named Keystone Health Center. Today, as a federally-funded Community Health Center, Keystone continues to provide services to anyone, regardless of his or her ability to pay, and to follow its mission of eliminating barriers to health care. “Guaranteeing access to health care is what Keystone is about … what it has been about for 20 years,” said Cochran. “Health care has been available in our community, but it’s not been accessible to many people because of lack of insurance, language, certain diseases, or lack of ability to pay. Those barriers have never existed at Keystone.” Keystone began with about 500 patients and a budget under $100,000. Today the organization provides services to about 40,000 medical and dental patients through over 150,000 visits annually. Its budget is now $17,000,000, and staffing has grown from three volunteers to over 250 employees. According to Cochran, “Keystone is where it is because of a committed and courageous board of directors and staff. They have followed Keystone’s crystal clear mission to eliminate barriers to health care, while maintaining quality, accessibility, and affordability.” Others would say that Cochran’s vision and leadership is what has made the health center the organization it is today. Keystone is recognized as a model for delivering quality and much needed health care services to everyone within the community. Over the years, Cochran has partnered with federal, state, and local organizations to ensure that residents have the health care services they need. Keystone Health Center is planning several small events over the next several months to celebrate its 20 years and honor its staff, board, and volunteers for their commitment to the mission. Keystone Health Center provides high-quality family medicine, internal medicine, pediatric, obstetric, gynecological, cardiac, behavioral, and dental health care and, when needed, social services to underserved and vulnerable populations as well as the entire community. Keystone now operates five full-time primary care practices—Keystone Family/Internal Medicine, Keystone Behavioral Health, Keystone Dental Care, Keystone Women's Care, and Franklin County Pediatrics—and one full-time specialty practice, the Franklin County Heart Center. Keystone continues to provide care to migrant farmworkers and now operates one year-round migrant and seasonal farmworker site in Berks County, one seasonal farmworker site in Adams County, and provides services to migrant farmworkers across the Commonwealth through outreach workers and contracted providers. The health center offers several special programs: the Keystone Pharmacy Program that may allow patients to purchase prescription drugs at discounted prices, the Healthy Beginnings Plus program that provides free care to pregnant women on Medical Assistance, the HIV/AIDS Program that provides prevention education, case management and support services as well as free, confidential HIV testing, and the Women’s Screening Program that offers low-cost screening to assess the risk factors for heart disease in women age 40 and older. For more information regarding Keystone Health Center, please visit the website at www.keystonehealth.org. For more information regarding this news release, please contact Dawn Stinson at (717) 263-2230 x 6002.
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