Health Resources and Services Administration: Many Underserved Areas Lack a Health Center Site, and the Health Center Program Needs More Oversight

摘要

Health centers funded through grants under the Health Center Program--managed by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)--provide comprehensive primary care services for the medically underserved. HRSA provides funding for training and technical assistance (TA) cooperative agreement recipients to assist grant applicants. GAO was asked to examine (1) to what extent medically underserved areas (MUA) lacked health center sites in 2006 and 2007 and (2) HRSA's oversight of training and TA cooperative agreement recipients' assistance to grant applicants and its provision of written feedback provided to unsuccessful applicants. To do this, GAO obtained and analyzed HRSA data, grant applications, and the written feedback provided to unsuccessful grant applicants and interviewed HRSA officials. Grant awards for new health center sites in 2007 reduced the overall percentage of MUAs lacking a health center site from 47 percent in 2006 to 43 percent in 2007.