Miami Dade AHEC

Specialties

Miami-​Dade AHEC (pronounced A-​heck) is your South Florida Area Health Education Center: a private 501©(3) non-​profit organization. That means we are not the government and we are not Miami-​Dade County. We are funded by the generous support and contributions of individuals, private organizations and corporations, combined with state and federal government funding.

Our mission is to ensure that our underserved communities are educated on today’s most critical health topics and have access to quality health care. Miami-​Dade AHEC seeks to improve the health of individuals and communities by transforming health care through education.

History

Established in 1987.

Area Health Education Centers were originally established by Congress in 1971 under President Carter through a large federal grant. The goal of AHECs was to bring the resources of academic medicine to address the needs of underserved communities. This is why most AHECs are affiliated with a university. AHECs were designed to recruit, train and retain healthcare professionals committed to serving these underserved populations.

Miami-​Dade AHEC was legally chartered as a non-​profit entity in Florida in 1987. We are part of the larger, statewide Florida AHEC network which together covers all 67 counties. We are an active member of the National AHEC Organization. The strength of our agency is its ability to creatively adapt national and state health initiatives to help address local healthcare issues.