Major National Awards for CCHCI’s CEO and CMO, Doctors Jon and Darlene Melk

Herald Review Media Article

DOUGLAS, Arizona – November 29, 2021 –  This year the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH) has selected Chiricahua’s Dr. Darlene Melk as their 2021 Community Star representing the state of Arizona. In a ceremony on November 18 (National Rural Health Day), Dr. Melk was honored and celebrated for her exceptional contributions to rural health by sharing her story alongside others from across the United States in the official book of Community Stars.

Darlene Rose Melk, MD, FAAP joined Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Inc. in 2010 and serves as the Chief Medical Officer, as well as taking care of pediatric patients in Douglas at the Early Childhood Center of Excellence and Sierra Vista Pediatrics. Dr. Melk (affectionately known by Chiricahua staff as “Dr. Darlene”) lives in Douglas with her husband and two children and has deep ties to the community.

“We have developed patient care teams here,” she said. “Our teams are very aware and we communicate well with each other so we know each other’s patients.”

When Dr. Melk initially joined CCHCI she was the third pediatrician to come to Douglas as part of CCHCI and now there is a group of 16 in Cochise County, seven of which are located in Douglas.

“It’s basically because of the demand,” she said. “It’s obvious there’s a need; there’s some children that we still are not able to reach but we are getting into communities we never were before.”
Dr. Melk says she is starting to see a change now where families are seeing the importance of prevention visits. “When we first came it was very much acute care, they would only come if they were sick,” she said. “Now we have families coming in for their well child checks and they are coming in for dental as well which we have integrated into the building so they can come get their vaccines, blood checks and dental all in one day.”

Based at the Early Childhood Center of Excellence on 16th Street she says intervening early in children’s lives ensures their best chance for a healthy future.

“I have focused my career on those children with the least access to quality medical care.”

On National Rural Health Day last week, Dr. Melk helped to celebrate Chiricahua’s team of Community Health Workers with a special luncheon in their honor at the Family Health Center in Benson. The team: RosaMaria MendozaChapa, Martin Rubio, Erika Vega and Karina Fernandez were presented with personalized embroidered backpacks containing battery packs for their cellphones which will come in useful when they are working in remote areas of this beautiful and diverse county, bringing healthcare to some of our most underserved communities, as well as visiting home-bound patients and providing care at homeless shelters and low-income housing developments.

In another major plaudit for Chiricahua’s work in Cochise County, earlier this month at an awards ceremony in New York City, Chiricahua’s CEO Dr. Jonathan Melk together with Dr. Darlene received the Children’s Health Fund’s Irwin Redlener Award for Innovation and Advocacy. Addressing the donors of the Children’s Health Fund which is one of CCHCI’s partners and a major grantor, Dr. Jonathan Melk shared as part of his acceptance speech:

“Very few will ever know the area where we work. This is what makes the donors of CHF so remarkable. You don’t even know them, but you are so willing to help the children and families of this far off land […] You have not only saved the lives of children, but you make their lives better and more dignified […] We simply couldn’t do it without you.”.

Chiricahua Community Health Centers, Inc. (CCHCI) is a mission driven Federally Qualified Health Center and a tax exempt not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Founded in 1996 as a small, rural health clinic operating in a community center, CCHCI has since grown to become the largest primary care organization in southeastern Arizona, serving more than 30,000 patients annually. About 61 percent of CCHCI’s patients are on Medicaid or uninsured and more than 25 percent live below 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold. CCHCI operates fourteen fixed-site medical clinics, and seven mobile-medical and mobile-dental units, that serve patients throughout the more than 6200 square mile borderlands of Cochise County.