About The Community Health Clinic
The Community Health Clinic is a 501(c)(3) non-profit healthcare facility located in Shipshewana, Indiana, that provides specialized genetics care consistent with Amish and Mennonite (Plain) values. The CHC provides clinical genetic services to all individuals, regardless of religion, race or age.
Services include, but are not limited to, clinical genetics, genetic counseling, newborn screening follow-up, diet management, and individualized care coordination.
We also partner with the Community Dental Clinic, which provides quality and affordable dental health care.
Our Mission…
…is to provide excellent and affordable medical care consistent with the needs of the Amish, Mennonite and other rural northern Indiana communities, with a focus on individuals and families with special healthcare needs.
We embrace, incorporate and promote participation in research to advance medical knowledge and improve care.
We offer clinical genetics care for known and suspected genetic conditions.
We offer Newborn Screening follow-up for inborn errors of metabolism, SCID, and SMA.
We see patients of any age and background.
Our service fees are deeply discounted compared to other genetics clinics.
We are a Medical Home, offering compassionate, comprehensive and coordinated medical care.
To assist with transportation barriers, patients are seen in Fort Wayne, its surrounding area, Southern Indiana, Northern Michigan, and Kentucky in addition to our main Shipshewana location. Home visits are also offered based on need.
Our History
The Community Health Clinic originates from a partnership between the northern Indiana Amish community and Dr. Amy Shapiro.
Dr. Shapiro, a pediatric hematologist and co-founder of The Indiana Hemophilia & Thrombosis Center, Inc. (IHTC), has provided care for many Amish individuals with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders. She built trust with the community and recognized their inherent barriers to care, including:
• Transportation
• Religious beliefs concerning church-based vs. traditional insurance
• Lack of access to specialized care
Dr. Shapiro recognized that quality hemophilia care requires good dental care to reduce and prevent bleeds that require expensive treatment. With funding provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Amish community and the IHTC established The Community Dental Clinic (CDC), an independent 501(c)(3) rural dental clinic, in 1999.
The CDC’s success led to discussions about the need for locally available genetics care for children with special needs. Thus, the idea for the CHC was born.
Almost all Amish descend from approximately 200 18th-Century founders. This “founder effect,” combined with the practice of marrying only within the faith community, has led to a high concentration of genetic disorders in Amish communities. By national definition, these disorders are classified as “rare” since they affect less than 200,000 Americans, but they significantly affect the Amish population. Many of these genetic conditions, also called biochemical or metabolic genetic disorders, require costly treatments and careful management by a physician with expertise in medical genetics.
To address this need, Dr. Shapiro worked collaboratively with the Amish community and helped establish the Community Health Clinic as an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 2008. The CHC formed an Amish-majority governed Board of Directors in 2009. Dr. Ammous was hired as the medical director of the CHC in 2013.
In January 2016, the Community Health Clinic and the Community Dental Clinic merged to increase organizational effectiveness, yet continue to operate as two separate clinics.