DETROIT — The Detroit Wayne County Health Authority will be known as Authority Health beginning Saturday, April 18. The new name is designed to simplify the organization’s public identity and better reflect its involvement in regional health initiatives, such as its community-based teaching health center, Nurse-Family Partnership, and Community Health Improvement Collaborative.

“Our Board of Directors has authorized a change in name to allow greater flexibility for implementing our various initiatives such as our community-based teaching health center medical residency program; our Nurse-Family Partnership, which is now regional; our role as a navigation agency for the Affordable Care Act, the new Detroit Wayne County Health Improvement Collaborative, and our Population Health Council,” said Chris Allen, CEO of Authority Health.

“While we remain grounded in the foundation established by the InterLocal Agreement by the State of Michigan, Wayne County, and City of Detroit, the expanded scope of our mission necessitated the change. We will continue to function as a health authority and pursue the same objectives of improving the health of vulnerable citizens in medically underserved areas through greater cohesion between providers and resources in the safety net.”

Key initiatives that expand beyond Wayne County include:

·   Several years ago, the Board of Directors authorized the Health Authority to expand its enrollment efforts beyond Wayne County to serve clients in neighboring counties.

·   The Authority Health teaching health center program, established through a federal grant three years go to train physicians and dentists in medically underserved areas, is based in Wayne County, but also has training sites outside the county.

·   Recently, the Detroit Nurse-Family Partnership was expanded to include all of Wayne County, as well as Macomb.

·   The Detroit-Wayne Community Health Collaborative is based on partnerships with health systems serving regional communities and will include strategies that influence vulnerable populations in those communities.

·   The Population Health Council remains focused on Wayne County, but actively engages in health equity, environmental quality, and public health issues that aren’t geo-specific.

“As we have seen with the recent collapse of the manufacturing sector and outmigration from Detroit, the low income, vulnerable populations are dispersed throughout all counties in Southeast Michigan. Our challenge is to support public health agencies in the work that they do, while supplementing their efforts by filling funding and programmatic gaps,” Allen said.

About Authority Health

Authority Health is a public body corporate, established as Detroit Wayne County Health Authority in 2004 through an InterLocal agreement between the State of Michigan, Wayne County, and City of Detroit to create a health care safety net for the uninsured and underserved population of Wayne County. Authority Health is a certified navigation agency, promoting enrollment in the Healthcare Marketplace and Healthy Michigan; sponsors the Detroit Nurse-Family Partnership, and the nation’s second largest community-based teaching health center program.