Kentucky Homeplace celebrates 30 years of serving the Commonwealth
HAZARD, Ky. (Nov. 11, 2024) — The Kentucky Homeplace Program is in the midst of celebrating its 30th year of helping Kentuckians. The UK Center of Excellence in Rural Health began Kentucky Homeplace as a demonstration project in 1994, in Hazard, Kentucky, to help individuals overcome barriers to health care and address health disparities.
Over the past three decades, the program has grown into a successful and nationally recognized community health worker (CHW) model. As the longest-running CHW program in Kentucky, Kentucky Homeplace has helped more than 200,000 Kentuckians access health and social services they may otherwise have gone without.
CHWs are skilled in helping members of their communities navigate the health care system, connect with health plans, access free and reduced-cost prescription medications and learn how to better self-manage chronic diseases like diabetes.
Kentucky Homeplace has provided more than 5.3 million services throughout the program’s history. The monetary value of these many services, combined with free and reduced-cost prescription medications, exceeds $416 million. Operating with an annual budget from the Kentucky Department of Public Health, Kentucky Homeplace has successfully demonstrated an average return on investment of more than $11 for every dollar budgeted.
Kentucky Homeplace currently employs 21 certified CHWs who cover 26 counties in eastern Kentucky.
In August, a celebration of the recent milestone was held in Hazard. Watch the 30th anniversary video here.
Locate a Kentucky Homeplace office and learn more about CHW training opportunities here or call 606-439-3557.
UK HealthCare is the hospitals and clinics of the University of Kentucky. But it is so much more. It is more than 10,000 dedicated health care professionals committed to providing advanced subspecialty care for the most critically injured and ill patients from the Commonwealth and beyond. It also is the home of the state’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, a Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that cares for the tiniest and sickest newborns, the region’s only Level 1 trauma center and Kentucky’s top hospital ranked by U.S. News & World Report.
As an academic research institution, we are continuously pursuing the next generation of cures, treatments, protocols and policies. Our discoveries have the potential to change what’s medically possible within our lifetimes. Our educators and thought leaders are transforming the health care landscape as our six health professions colleges teach the next generation of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals, spreading the highest standards of care. UK HealthCare is the power of advanced medicine committed to creating a healthier Kentucky, now and for generations to come.