Pinckneyville Is New Home to South Central Area Health Education Center
Pinckneyville Community Hospital, 5383 State Route 154, is the new host of the South Central Area Health Education Center, which was previously located in Centralia, Ill.
Part of a statewide network of Illinois Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program, the South Central AHEC has programs focusing on giving young people a head start toward a health profession and assisting working health care professionals in advancing their careers.
“We are pleased to be a part of this partnership with the Illinois AHEC Program and support the mission of improving access to health care in underserved areas, especially by helping young people to become interested in and pursue health careers,” says Randall W. Dauby, CPA, Chief Executive Officer of the Pinckneyville Community Hospital District, which includes a 17-bed critical access hospital that provides acute care, emergency services, specialty clinics, therapy services, an outpatient senior behavioral health program, and a rural health clinic.
The Illinois AHEC Program is comprised of regional centers in Carthage, Dixon, Fairfield, Gibson City and Normal and three centers in the Chicago metropolitan area with program offices at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford and University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health in Chicago.
“The University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford, which is the program office for AHEC, has had a long-standing partnership with Pinckneyville Community Hospital where students in our Rural Medical Education Program learn about rural medicine,” says Hana Hinkle, PhD, interim director and head of the college’s National Center for Rural Health Professions and associate director of the Illinois AHEC Program. “We are thrilled to continue and expand that partnership and commitment to rural health and education through the AHEC program.”
Illinois AHEC is funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the federal agency charged with training health professionals and improving health care for people who are geographically isolated, economically disadvantaged or medically vulnerable.
For more information on the South Central Area Health Education Center, contact Gloria Przygoda, DNP FNP-C at (618) 357-8878 or gprzygoda@pvillehosp.org.
