By Katie Knapp Schubert
Omaha, NE – About 550 families have visited Omaha's six school-based health centers since August.
Building Bright Futures partnered with One World Community Health Centers and Charles Drew Health Center for the clinics. Three are in north Omaha and three in the southern part of the city.
Jeanne Weiss, Director of Healthy Futures for Building Bright Futures, says 80-percent of the patients seen at those centers so far are students at the host schools. "It's been quite a variety of visit reasons, for anything from well child visits, immunizations, even ear aches, stomach aches, etc, a lot of the common complaints that keep kids out of school."
Building Bright Futures hopes to expand school-based health centers in to additional districts.
Six of those health centers opened in August. They're located in Belvedere Elementary; Indian Hill Elementary; Kellom Elementary; King Science and Technology Magnet Center; Liberty Elementary; and Spring Lake Elementary.
Weiss says those sites were chosen because they're in areas with 90 percent poverty and little access to quality health care. Each clinic is staff by a Physician Assistant or Nurse Practitioner and a medical assistant.