San Luis Valley Area Health Education Center Inc

The San Luis Valley Area Health Education Center (SLV AHEC) provides services to six counties in the San Luis Valley: Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Mineral, Rio Grande, and Saguache counties, an area of over 8,000 square miles. The SLV AHEC was established in 1978 as a community-based 501(c)(3) organization and is one of six regional independent AHECs in Colorado that serve the entire state. All counties in the San Luis Valley are federally identified as medically underserved, and the AHEC's goal is to strategically address this problem by increasing the local medical workforce utilizing a birth-to-professional pipeline model, and by creating community health programs where gaps exist.

Some of the recent and ongoing programs of the SLV AHEC designed to improve health outcomes in the San Luis Valley include:

• Workforce pipeline programming for youth to cultivate interest in the healthcare field and improve health and education outcomes.

• Professional development activities for health care providers and the community.

• Community health programming addressing the opioid and substance use crisis; naloxone overdose-reversal education and distribution; administering the state's first rural comprehensive harm and risk reduction program; and case advocates and peer recovery specialists focused on working with those who are using opioids and other substances and those in recovery including a jail-based program, prenatal services, recovery doula services, and more.

• Community collaboration programs aiming to prevent health, mental, emotional, and behavioral problems.

• Other community health programs such as a community health worker cardiac risk assessment program and a school readiness home visitation program are catered to the needs of the communities we serve.