Press
Crain’s Reports on Expectations of Winter for Migrants
Crain's reports on the potential public health crisis from the lack of shelter for asylum seekers this winter. As Chicagoans prepare for the upcoming season and the notorious winter frosts in our city, Crain's Chicago Business writes about expectations for the over...
New Grant from Lundbeck US Charitable Fund
Long-time funder, partner, and ally of CommunityHealth, Lundbeck, announces $1 million grant.Lundbeck, a global pharmaceutical company specializing in brain diseases, has supported our clinic for over a decade. The company is committed to researching, developing,...
WBEZ on a Year into the Migrant Crisis
WBEZ sat down with the CommunityHealth again to learn more about the ongoing migrant crisis as it crosses the one year mark. On September 7th, 2023, Chief Executive Officer of CommunityHealth, Stephanie Willding, MPA, talked with Dr. Evelyn Figueroa, MD, of Pilsen...
Advancing Access to Health Care with HC3
The Healthcare Council of Chicago sat down with the CEO of CommunityHealth to talk about access to health care. Meghan Phillip, MBA and David Smith, co-hosts of the podcast from HC3 sponsored by Third Horizon Strategies, discussed our volunteer-based, no-cost business...
CommunityHealth CEO Writes to the Chicago Sun-Times
"We did not create this humanitarian crisis, but we are responsible for it." Our Chief Executive Officer, Stephanie Willding, MPA, writes to the Chicago Sun-Times on the mobile care units that our clinic has deployed to police precincts for asylum seekers since May....
WBEZ Checks In On Our Migrant Crisis Response
WBEZ sat down with the CommunityHealth to talk about how we are welcoming our new neighbors seeking asylum in Chicago.WBEZ Chicago hosted Chief Executive Officer of CommunityHealth, Stephanie Willding, MPA, on a panel with other community leaders like Evelyn Figueroa,...
NBC5 Reports on Mobile Care Units at Respite Centers
CommunityHealth is deploying mobile care units to local police precincts to provide thousands of new arrivals with health assessments and resources.NBC5 Chicago sat down with our Chief Executive Officer, Steph Willding, MPA, to talk about the CommunityHealth mobile...
Dr. Fiala on NPR
CommunityHealth offers sleep medicine in our medical home. Dr. Justin Fiala, a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, has introduced sleep medicine at CommunityHealth. After training at CommunityHealth as a medical student through the University of Illinois at Chicago Urban Medicine program, Dr. Fiala led the launch of our first sleep clinic in 2021…
Block Club Chicago Reports on Medical Care for Migrants
Block Club Chicago reports on organizations across Chicago and their responses to the influx of migrants from social, political, and environmental upheaval. Considering "Chicago has already been pushed to the max trying to find shelter for the waves of migrants...
Univision Chicago Interview on Diabetes Day
CommunityHealth is hosting Diabetes Day on Saturday April 29th. In partnership with Onward Neighborhood House, community members are invited to receive free screenings and resources. The first 40 participants will win Diabetes care packages with glucometers and blood...
The Importance of Screening for Social Determinants of Health
[From AMA Steps Forward Podcast] Margaret Bavis, DNP and Assistant Professor, Rush University College of Nursing, discusses how CommunityHealth, one of the largest volunteer-based health centers in the nation, assesses and optimizes social determinants of health to...
LLoyd A. Fry Foundation 2022 Annual Report
"CommunityHealth and its patients have seen firsthand that hyperlocal care can help achieve more equitable care." Thank you to our allies at the LLoyd A. Fry Foundation for highlighting the launch of our first microsite! In serving "care to low-income, uninsured...
Spotlighting a 40 Under 40 in health care: Crain’s Daily Gist podcast highlights Steph Willding
Stephanie Willding, CEO of CommunityHealth, talks with Crain's Daily Gist host Amy Guth about her work, the organization, and the leadership lesson she learned during the early days of the pandemic. Listen to the interview here.
Disrupting Privilege: Conversations on Race & Health
CEO Steph Willding was featured on Equal Hope's "Disrupting Privilege" Podcast November 28, 2022. She spoke to hosts John McIlwain and Shari Runner about the ways in which CommunityHealth was established as a disruption to the payor-model healthcare system that we...
Stephanie Willding recognized as Crain’s 40 Under 40
[Excerpted from Crain's Chicago Business] Stephanie Willding ran the Chicago Marathon this October for the first time. She says running helped her through another marathon: taking the reins of Chicago’s largest free clinic, CommunityHealth, as CEO right before the...
Are there enough resources for migrants arriving in Chicago?
WBEZ Chicago: Reset with Sasha-Ann Simons Oct 19, 2022 As thousands of Central and South American migrants arrive in Chicago, leaders across the city are rushing to provide adequate housing and support for them. But some aldermen are calling on Mayor Lightfoot to do...
Hispanic Heritage Month: Medical Student Overcomes Obstacles to Becoming a Doctor [VIDEO]
[From NBC5 Chicago] "Inside the CommunityHealth clinic in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood, a second-year medical student teaches a class on the weekends that involves preventative health care, and her students are members of a community who are close to her heart....
As immigrants arrive in buses from Texas, health providers get to work
[Excerpted from Crain's Chicago Business] "Onward House generally refers health care to the free CommunityHealth Clinic, whose main offices are in West Town on Chicago Avenue, which opened a telehealth microclinic at Onward during the pandemic. "Stephanie Willding,...
Here’s How You Can Help Migrants Arriving In Chicago From Texas
[Excerpted from Block Club Chicago] "CommunityHealth is one of the largest volunteer-based health centers in the United States, offering free services to low-income, uninsured Chicagoans, which is primarily an immigrant population, external affairs director Laura...
11 questions with Chicago’s Steph Willding, CEO of CommunityHealth
[Excerpted from Midwest Today] Many of our patients have never had a medical home that provides a comprehensive set of health services - all for free. At CommunityHealth, they have the chance to build a long-term relationship with their primary care provider....
Community Health Chicago Opens Little Village Satellite Clinic Offering Free Services
[Excerpted from BlockClubChicago.org] Little Village residents have another neighborhood option for free health care beginning this month. Community Health Chicago, which offers free services to low-income, uninsured Chicagoans, has partnered with Enlace Chicago to...
Feinberg second-year medical students screen patients for food insecurity
[Excerpted from News-Medical.net] As part of their second-year MD curriculum, a group of Feinberg students recently designed and implemented a community quality improvement project, screening patients for food insecurity at their Education-Centered Medical Home (ECMH)...
A new law allows donations of unused medications
Stephanie Willing, the CEO of Community Health joins Good Day Chicago to discuss the new law that went into effect Jan. 1. [Excerpt from interview, Fox32 Chicago] Steph: "Under this new law, any individual or institution can donate sealed, unexpired medications to any...
New law allows donation of unused medication in Illinois. But it could take some time to get started.
[Excerpted from Chicago Tribune] Free and charitable clinics with pharmacies may also benefit from the new law. Such clinics, which give uninsured and underinsured patients free services and medication, already receive donated or low-cost drugs, but typically only...
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast – ft. CEO Steph Willding
Last month, CEO Steph Willding appeared on Becker's Healthcare Podcast to discuss CommunityHealth's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and share her experience in the world of free and charitable health centers. Click here to listen!
Chicago clinics serving low-income patients mandate COVID-19 vaccines for employees, following lead of big hospitals
[Excerpted from Chicago Tribune] Esperanza Health Centers, Alivio Medical Center, AHS Family Health Center and CommunityHealth will require employees to get their first vaccine doses by Sept. 1. Together, the centers have more than a dozen clinics across the Chicago...
As Covid-19 Vaccinations Slow, Safety Net Providers Get Creative
[Excerpted from Direct Relief] ... Stephanie Willding, chief executive officer of the Chicago-based clinic CommunityHealth, explained that staff members have seen three separate stages in the vaccination process. First, she said, were people ready and even excited to...
Opportunities for Telemedicine to Meet Socioeconomic Demands
Telehealth has been a lifeline for long-term patients throughout the pandemic — but what about those without reliable access to high speed internet? By: Stephanie Wilding, CEO at CommunityHealth COVID-19 sent telemedicine on the fast-track for widespread adoption,...
Bodegas, Shelters, Food Lines & Phone Calls: Bringing Healthcare to Patients
[Excerpted from The Art of Change, by Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock] When people lined up outside of a major food bank in Chicago, CommunityHealth’s team sprang into action. Walking down the long, socially-distanced line of people on the sidewalk, they conducted...
Gallagher Way at Wrigley Field, Chicago State University vaccination sites open Monday
[Excerpted from WGN 9] ... Representatives with Advocate, the Cubs, and three non-profits stressed the need to improve vaccine access for minorities, immigrants, homeless and other vulnerable populations. “Often time throughout the pandemic, our positivity rate was...
Allison Arwady Has a Plan
[Excerpted from Chicago Magazine] ... “Allison was famous here long before she was famous in Chicago,” says Stephanie Willding, the CEO of CommunityHealth, a West Town nonprofit clinic that is the city’s largest health care facility for the uninsured. Until the...
4 Healthcare Technology Trends Expected to Boom During COVID-19
[Excerpted fromHealthTech] ... Together, many of the shifts that have taken place have moved the needle toward a more patient-focused experience of healthcare delivery. “The pandemic pointed to the need for patient-centered healthcare,” says Stephanie Willding, CEO...
Some Black and Latino Americans are still hesitant to take the vaccine. Here’s what is fueling that distrust
[Excerpted from CNN] ... CommunityHealth in Chicago, which provides free healthcare to nearly 8,000 patients — most of them Latino — is understaffed with only 42 employees and 1,000 volunteers, CEO Stephanie Willding said. Willding said her clinic isn't equipped for...
‘How can we become trustworthy?’ Doctors and community leaders are working to counter vaccine hesitancy in Black and Latino Americans
[Excerpted from MarketWatch] ... Making sure ‘trusted places’ can distribute vaccines CommunityHealth, located on Chicago’s West Side, is the largest free health center in the country. Its roughly 8,000 active patients have no health insurance, and a majority come...
Americares Awards $250,000 in COVID-19 Relief Grants
[Excerpted from Americares] ... The funds will be used to purchase critically needed personal protective equipment, increase COVID-19 testing and screening capabilities, implement telehealth services, hire additional medical staff and offset the cost of other...
Mental Health Providers See “Unprecedented” Surge During Pandemic
[Excerpted from Direct Relief] ... At CommunityHealth – a free clinic based in Chicago – licensed clinical social worker Ornella Razetto has observed a similar trend. “It began with anxiety, depressive symptoms and financial insecurity,” said Razetto, but now,...
US Election: Why is healthcare a key issue with Latino voters?
[Excerpted from EuroNews] ... Matilde Ríos is one of the primary care physicians at the CommunityHealth centre in Chicago, the largest free clinic in the United States, a safety net for people without medical coverage in the third most populous city in the country....
Latino communities in Illinois see uptick in COVID-19 confirmed cases: ‘Physical distancing is a privilege’
[Excerpted from the Chicago Tribune] ... Stephanie Willding, the CEO at CommunityHealth, a West Town clinic, said she started to get messages from the community about a month ago telling her that people were sick but were scared to seek medical help. The pandemic...
Before data showed Chicago blacks dying at higher rates, communities of color knew recovery from COVID-19 would be slow
[Excerpted from the Chicago Tribune] ... Despite the lack of accurate numbers, health care providers at the CommunityHealth clinic in West Town, where 60% of the patients are Spanishspeaking, are brainstorming new ways to help patients get food and hygiene products....
Chicago’s CommunityHealth providing care, medicine for free
Watch the video and read the article at WGN 9, April 7, 2020 Watch the video and read the article at WGN 9, April 7, 2020