South Central AHEC
History: The South Central Area Health Education Center (AHEC) was established in 1996 to create primary care clinical training opportunities for practitioners to better address the needs of medically underserved communities. The South Central AHEC has also focused on providing training and experiential opportunities for health professions students at the University of Texas Health San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) and other institutions.
In 2008, South Central AHEC partnered with the UT Health San Antonio-Institute of the Integration of Medicine and Science (IIMS) to develop community engagement initiatives for UT Health San Antonio’s Clinical Translation Science Award (CTSA). Under CTSA, South Central AHEC and IIMS have created seven community advisory boards across rural South Texas and, in partnership, have conducted practice-based research and community stakeholder initiatives to overcome health disparities for our dominantly Hispanic communities.
South Central AHEC collaborates with regional partners to increase the capacity of the communities to address the unmet and disparate health needs of their citizens through educational intervention. It is our objective to ensure diversity in the health care workforce by collaborating with agencies and organizations in order to provide interdisciplinary training, continuing education credits and cultural competency workshops to health professions students, faculty and health providers throughout the south central region of Texas.
Mission: The mission of the South Central AHEC is to improve access to quality health care in the region through health professions training, practice, community based health improvement initiatives, and collaborative community engagement.
Region: The South Central AHEC lies in the “heart” of Texas and its’ work promotes health education initiatives in a 12 county region inclusive of the counties detailed below in the Service Area.
Service Area: Bexar, Gillespie, Kendall, Comal, Guadalupe, Wilson, Karnes, Atascosa, Frio, Medina, Bandera and Kerr.
