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Mission & Role

Mission: To promote population health equity for all through leadership and programs supporting community health centers and members in achieving their goals of accessible, quality, comprehensive, and community responsive health care.

The Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers (League) was founded in 1972 as one of the first state Primary Care Associations (PCAs) in the country. Established under the same federal authorizing legislation as the health center program (Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act), PCAs are organized around a set of core functions and competencies that provide a framework for support and assistance to health centers and the communities they serve. As such, the League is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization registered as a public charity with the Commonwealth's Secretary of State, and maintains a professional staff at its headquarters in Boston and at its training center in Worcester.

The League serves as an information source on community-based health care to policymakers, opinion leaders and the media, and provides a wide range of technical assistance to health centers and communities, including:

  • Workforce Development initiatives to recruit, retain, and develop a well-trained cadre of primary care providers, and to increase educational and economic opportunities in communities served by health centers.
  • Analysis of state and federal health regulatory and policy issues affecting health centers.
  • Information Technology Development primarily focused on assisting health centers as they work to upgrade their health information technology systems and capacity for using data.
  • Management of and support for Clinical Quality initiatives to improve and better integrate patient care.
  • Training and Education for health center administrators, clinicians and board members.
  • Support to Expand Health Access through work with state leaders and local health and advocacy organizations seeking to open health centers in their communities.
The League also oversees:
  • Massachusetts' Health Center Controlled Network (HCCN), a federal Health Resources and Services Administration-funded initiative to assist 36 health centers in better leveraging health information technology for improving health access, enhancing quality of care, and achieving cost efficiencies through practice redesign.
  • Connecticut River Valley Farmworker Health Program (CRVFHP), a voucher program funded under Section 330 (g) of the Public Health Service Act that enables qualified migrant and seasonal agricultural workers and their families to receive a limited set of health services from a network of participating Massachusetts and Connecticut health care providers based in the Connecticut River Valley.
Affiliate organizations of which the League is a founder and partner, include:
  • Capital Link, a 501c3 organization established in 1994 to assist health centers in Massachusetts and nationally with financing related to facility development and other major capital projects.
  • CommonWealth Purchasing Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the League that provides group purchasing, shared services, and strategic sourcing solutions for 300 health centers and related non-profit organizations in Massachusetts and across the country.
  • Massachusetts Association for Community Health (MACH), a 501c4 advocacy and social welfare organization supportive of health policy aimed at addressing community health needs.