Arizona

Congruent with the missions of most community health centers, those in Arizona strive to provide and continuously improve comprehensive care of the highest quality that is accessible, affordable, and respectful of patients and staff. The centers began as modest operations in Arizona. They grew, however, because they had strong support from community activists and they integrated themselves into local health care delivery systems. The health needs are great in communities that are dramatically diverse culturally, economically, and socially. The centers serve a cross section of people across the socioeconomic spectrum from those with insurance to those who are poor, working but uninsured, or require otherwise unaffordable health care. The service populations are primarily Hispanic, Native American, and Anglo.

The community health centers, located in Casa Grande, Flagstaff, Nogales, Phoenix, and Tucson hire and retain highly skilled and motivated staff. They succeed in providing affordable care in financially stable cost-efficient organizations. All have taken care to establish links with local practitioners, the United States Indian Health Service (IHS), or regional and university hospitals in order to ensure the availability of a range of services, education, and community outreach. The IHS supplements the services of community health centers for much of the Native American population in Arizona.

The phenomenon of affiliated group practices has caught on in Arizona. One of these groups is The Dental Net Group, an integrated prepaid dental plan that has been in operation since 1974. The group applies savvy business sense to all aspects of practice but with a focus on quality of care. The group comprises five dental offices in Phoenix and Tucson and serves over 9,000 patients each month. The staffs include general dentists, dental assistants, sterilization technicians, and clerical staff. Four of the five offices employ dental hygienists. The offices offer every phase of general dentistry in a supportive, collegial environment. Specialty referrals are available. Dental residents can expect to treat a variety of patients with complex oral health needs.

• Mesa +
  Mesa Arizona is part of the greater Phoenix metro area. Outdoor activities such as golf, tennis and hiking can be enjoyed year round. Cultural events, shows, museums and other entertainment are readily accessible, and of course, the weather is gorgeous!
  • A.T. Still University, Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ASDOH) +
    Arizona's first dental school, ASDOH began addressing the nation's oral healthcare needs in 2003. ASDOH seeks students who aspire to become high-quality, community-minded leaders and dentists.
    

    Clinical training of residents is done at two sites: ASDOH's main dental school campus in Mesa and our private practice, Dental Care West, in the Glendale area of the West Valley. Residents will be trained in the newest technology including various types of lasers, Cerec, Itero, Velscope and implants. Training also includes treatment of patients requiring sedation/anesthesia, medically complex patients and those with special needs. Emphasis is placed on complex complete oral rehabilitation cases. Residents participate in multidisciplinary case presentations/treatment planning seminars and have amply opportuinty to work with a variety of our specialty faculty. Opportunities exist for research if desired. Residents deliver comprehensive care to their family of patients and work a full time dental assistant.

  • Dental Care West in Glendale, AZ +
    Arizona's first university-affiliated dental clinics offer compassionate, personal care with affordable fees. We set the standard for modern dental education nationwide. If you do not have a family dentist, come see us.
• Phoenix +
  Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, is a thriving urban business, technology, and agriculture center in the Southwest. People once considered Phoenix a rowdy frontier town populated by soldiers, cowboys, miners, and outlaws. The construction of the Roosevelt Dam, the Southern Pacific Railroad, the Central Arizona Project’s system of aqueducts, and air conditioning spurred the city’s growth. Phoenix is the ninth largest city in the country and a major center for higher education including Arizona State University, the arts, and recreation. Phoenix highlights the Native American wonders of the Heard Museum, Deer Valley Rock Art Center, and the Desert Botanical Gardens. The city, home of the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Coyotes, Arizona Cardinals, and Arizona Diamondbacks, welcomes the Fiesta Bowl in winter and the arrival of the Oakland Athletics for spring training.
  • Mountain Park Health Center +
    Established in 1980, Mountain Park Health Center has grown from a one-physician practice serving 1,000 patients annually to a JCAHO accredited, multi-specialty practice with four clinical sites serving more than 54,000 patients a year. The health center serves individuals from throughout the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, with a focus on serving medically underserved communities. The health center offers comprehensive primary health care across the life span, including general medical care, dentistry, behavioral health, pharmacy, and vision care. The center’s facility in South Phoenix is home to a state-of-the-art dental wing that houses 19 dental chairs. The Dentistry Department includes nine dentists, three dental hygienists and 14 dental assistants. The staff provides comprehensive dental care with a focus on preventive dentistry to more than 5,600 individuals annually, constituting approximately 20,000 dental encounters. The department has been involved in a variety of innovative programs serving prenatal patients, Women and Infant Care participants, seniors, and local schools. The health center is a training site for a wide variety of health professional programs, including schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health.
• Tucson +
  The Tucson Area IHS and the Navajo Area IHS participate in Lutheran’s AEGD program. The Arizona Department of Corrections is a rotation from one of the health centers. The department offers contemporary comprehensive dental care in ten modern facilities across the state. It provides specialty services through contracts with board-eligible or certified specialists in the community. Like many Arizona community health centers, the Department of Corrections participates in the statewide telemedicine system sponsored by the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center in Tucson.

  Tucson, nicknamed the Old Pueblo, is Arizona’s oldest and second largest city. Surrounded by five protective mountain ranges, Tucson nests in a high desert valley, once an ancient inland sea. In between Native American rebellions, the Mexican War, and the Civil War, Tucson became a notorious stage coach stop on the road from San Antonio to San Diego. Now the University of Arizona and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base are major employers. The city, devoted to University of Arizona basketball and football, hosts training camps for the Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox, and Arizona Diamondbacks. South Tucson, a mile square community within the city of Tucson, is a center of Mexican-American culture, business, food, art, and architecture. Area attractions include the renowned Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, beautiful San Xavier Mission, and spectacular Sabino and Madera Canyons. By air, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Las Vegas are one hour away. Today Tucson offers a prosperous and charming image of natural beauty, native arts, historical missions, regional architecture, and celebratory cultural festivals.

  • Sun Life Family Health Center +
    Sun Life Family Health Center , founded in 1976 as a non-profit rural family health center, is located in Casa Grande, half way between Phoenix and Tucson. The impressive main facility opened in 1995 and three satellite clinics are located in Maricopa, Eloy, and Coolidge. Sun Life, accredited by JCAHO, affiliates with three acute or sub-acute care hospitals. The center provides comprehensive primary health care services to families. More than 18,000 unduplicated patients receive medical services and over 4,000 patients receive oral health care in a year. The dental service comprises eight operatories and the staff includes two general dentists, eight dental assistants, and three office assistants. Sun Life offers a full range of general dental care, including periodontics and implants. A hospital-based pediatric dentist provides more complex pediatric care and the center refers patients for orthodontics.

    Casa Grande, located about midway between Phoenix and Tucson in an area known as Arizona’s “Golden Corridor,” was founded in 1879 and named for the prehistoric Hohokam Indian ruins 20 miles to the cd northeast. The Hohokam mysteriously abandoned the site about 1450. The ruins were rediscovered and named by a Spanish missionary in the late 17th century. Casa Grande is centrally located and accessible to major recreational and educational locations. Phoenix and Tucson are between fifty and sixty miles away. Once dependent on agriculture and mining, the city evolved into a diversified community offering employment in manufacturing, government, and retail, tourist, and retirement services. Named a Main Street city in 1992, Casa Grande has a population of almost 20,000 people and is revitalizing its historical railroad station and buildings in the downtown area. The city hosts annual events such as the O’odham Tash Indian PowWow, which honors the ancient ancestors of the area.

  • El Rio Community Health Center +
    Established in 1969, the El Rio Community Health Center is the oldest and largest community health center in Arizona. The center, located in west downtown Tucson, has two satellite offices in underserved areas. Many in the community are not poor enough to qualify for Arizona’s managed care Medicaid Program, yet they are too poor to pay cash for health services. Over 60% of the more than 70,000 clients at El Rio are employed but have no health insurance. El Rio has a large population of Medicare patients and provides services to private insurance groups as well. The center also provides dental services to homeless and HIV+ persons through Federal grants. The center, accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), is seeking JCAHO recognition by the year 2007. It offers a comprehensive range of health care services and has affiliations with St. Mary’s Hospital, Tucson Medical Center, and University Hospital. El Rio Health Center is a training site for internal medicine residents from the University of Arizona School of Medicine. The dental clinic opened in 1973 and moved into new facilities in 1992. A team of six dentists, one oral surgeon, an orthodontist, and five dental hygienists staff this 16-chair facility. The new Southwest office has 18 chairs staffed by two dentists and two dental hygienists. The seven chair Northwest office also has two dentists and two hygienists. The center offers comprehensive care, and oral and maxillofacial surgery, endodontics, and prosthodontics balance its large pediatric dental practice.
  • Pascua Yaqui Tribal Dental Center +
    The Pascua Yaqui tribe lived from time immemorial in the Rio Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico. By the late 19th century they began to migrate into Arizona to escape further warfare with Mexico. In 1964, the United States deeded 202 acres to the Pascua Yaqui Association on the outskirts of Tucson and the tribe received Federal recognition in 1978. The primary source of income for the tribe is its casino, which opened in 1994. The tribe created its health maintenance organization in 1995.

    Pascua Yaqui Tribal Dental Center opened in 2004 about four miles west of Tucson and accepted its first resident in 2006. The center is part of an independent reservation that serves exclusively Pascua Yaqui tribal members. The tribe offers its members a wide range of heath and well being care with special programs in diabetes, HIV/AIDS prevention, alternative medicine, alcohol and substance abuse, and youth wellness. The dental center has ten completely paperless operatories and digital radiography. Since opening, the center has had more than 19,000 patient visits. The staff provides comprehensive general dentistry excluding implants and limited orthodontia.

  • Mariposa Community Health Center +
    Mariposa Community Health Center is a medium-sized, not-for-profit facility located in Nogales, Arizona. Once housed in a trailer during its humble beginnings, it now has a state-of-the-art facility.

    Mariposa Community Health Center admits patients to Carondolet Holy Cross Hospital and Tucson Medical Center in Tucson. The center offers a wide range of primary care services including family practice, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, and pediatrics to approximately 13,500 predominately Hispanic patients. The Federal Bureau of Primary Health Care, through its Primary Care Effectiveness Review assesses the health center. In addition to dental residents, Mariposa is a clinical extern site for medical, pharmacy, and dental assisting students. The modern nine-chair dental facility offers comprehensive care with a special focus on preventive dentistry.

    Nogales and its twin city, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, straddle the international border between the United States and Mexico. The city, located in a mountainous setting at an elevation of 3,865 feet above sea level, began its modern history in 1880 as a trading post along the border. In 1882, Nogales was the site of the first rail connection between Mexico and the United States and international trade, based on manufacturing, commerce, and agriculture, became an important part of the economy. Nogales is the largest port of entry for winter fruits and vegetables in the U.S. and is a vital retail hub for northern Mexico. An estimated 50,000 Mexican shoppers cross the border each day. An hour from Tucson, Nogales is surrounded by high country recreational areas. Nearby is the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Sanctuary, a rare stream bottom sanctuary, which is the site for 300 species of birds. The Ramsey Canyon Preserve of the Nature Conservancy contains the largest population of hummingbird species in the world. There are numerous ghost towns and mining camps, and the Chiricahua National Monument where Geronimo hid from authorities during the Apache wars.

• Flagstaff +

  “Flagstaff… gateway to the spectacular vistas of the Grand Canyon, Navaholand, and Monument Valley.”

  Flagstaff, sometimes known as “Flag,” attributes its name to a legend that a lone pine tree discovered in a valley was stripped of its branches and used as a flagstaff during an 1876 July 4th celebration. The flagstaff became a landmark for wagon trains headed to California, a route eventually replaced by the railroad and the fabled Route 66. Flagstaff, located at 7,000 feet at the base of the San Francisco Peaks, is the largest city and regional center of Northern Arizona. It is the beautiful home of Northern Arizona University, Lowell Observatory, and the Museum of Northern Arizona. The city is the northern terminus of the scenic Oak Creek Canyon, the red rock buttes of Sedona, and the gateway to the spectacular vistas of the Grand Canyon, Navaholand, and Monument Valley.

  • North Country Community Health Center +
    North Country Community Health Center began in 1991 as a volunteer driven free clinic for those who had no medical home except the Flagstaff Medical Center Emergency Room. Since then the clinic relocated, changed its name, and became a Federally funded community health center. North Country, assessed by the Federal Bureau of Primary Health Care, Primary Care Effectiveness Review, offers full-scale outpatient primary care to over 20,000 patients a year. The center is an affiliate of Flagstaff Medical Center, which has the only Level II Trauma Center in Northern Arizona. In addition to dental residents, the center is a training site for dental hygienists, medical residents, and nurses. The new dental facility supports a full range of preventive and restorative dentistry for an extremely needy population.
• Winslow +
  Winslow, located in the southwestern corner of the Navajo Nation, is in open range country punctuated by juniper and shrub grass. The city was named after General Edward Winslow, a president of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. Winslow, about 60 miles east of Flagstaff, has a population of over 8,000 people and remains a major railroad center, important in shipping and trading. The community lies in the Little Colorado River Valley and the river borders the city’s eastern edge. Nearby are Little Painted Desert and Homolovi Ruins State Park, which contain more than 300 archeological sites. Clear Creek Reservoir and the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest have choices of fishing, camping, and water sports. Within two hours, travelers can enjoy Meteor Crater, Sunset Crater, Canyon De Chelly National Monument, and the Petrified Forest National Park. To the north are the Navajo and Hopi reservations and their entire natural and archeological splendor.
  • Winslow Service Unit of the Navajo Area Indian Health Care Center +
    The Winslow Service Unit of the Navajo Area Indian Health Care Center , Inc. encompasses 1,600 square miles and serves over 21,000 people. The primary clinical site is the Winslow Health Center, a comprehensive ambulatory center accredited by AAAHC. Two additional health stations within 35 miles of the center supplement its services. IHS physicians provide limited inpatient and obstetric care at the 42-bed Winslow Memorial Hospital. Patients requiring complex care must be referred to hospitals more than 130 miles away. Special clinics include areas such as cardiology, pediatrics, rheumatology, orthopedics, and dentistry. The dental unit comprises three clinics in Winslow, Dilkon, and Leupp with seven dentists, thirteen dental assistants, three hygienists, and receptionists. The treatment philosophy encourages preventive dentistry with an emphasis on patient responsibility. The service unit provides a full range of dental care to patients and annually sponsors dental sealant programs in elementary schools in the area.
• Ganado +
  Ganado is located in the high desert of northeast Arizona at 6,500 feet elevation. There are four seasons and a much cooler climate than the low deserts of Arizona. It rarely exceeds 90 degrees in the summer. Outdoor recreation abounds. There is mountain biking out your door, cross-country skiing, river rafting, camping, fishing, and hiking. Within a half-day drive are Flagstaff, Moab in Utah, Telluride and Durango in Colorado, and Albuquerque and Santa Fe in New Mexico. You can drive to seven ski resorts within five hours. Approximately 20 national parks, monuments, and wilderness areas are contained within the “Golden Circle,” which includes the Four Corners area of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. The Navaho people have inhabited the area since the 1700’s and the reservation, the largest in the United States, is about the size of West Virginia. Their culture is rich and intact and offers opportunities to learn about the Navajo path to “walk in beauty.” The nearby Hopi Reservation contains some of the oldest continuously inhabited dwellings in the country. The historic Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado sells the respected Navajo woven rugs and Hopi pottery among other Indian artifacts. Ganado departs from the pressures of city life and is a safe, small, and friendly community in which to raise a family.
  • Sage Memorial Hospital +
    Presbyterian missionaries founded Sage Memorial Hospital in 1901. Sage, accredited by JCAHO, is a private, non-profit hospital serving 25,000 patients in the heart of the Navajo Indian Reservation. The main dental clinic has eight operatories. Sage also has two field clinics with six dental operatories. The hospital’s operating room has a suite dedicated to dental care where the staff treats over 200 cases each year. The hospital has a staff of over 300 employees and provides a full range of health care. Residents have the opportunity to manage complex heath care needs with a systemic approach in an interdisciplinary environment. The dental staff includes three dentists, a dental hygienist, and ten assistants. The Reservation, underserved for dental care, has one of the highest decay rates in the world. We provide comprehensive dental treatment to our patients with up-to-date materials including CEREC 3D CAD/CAM technology. Sage provides free housing to residents on the hospital campus. This allows a short walk to work instead of a commute. Enjoy four seasons and outdoor activities including hiking, biking, river sports, and skiing while living in the high desert at 6,500 feet. The hospital campus will soon be designated a National Historic District and the hospital offers a rare breadth and depth of professional experience in Ganado.