Labcorp and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) have launched a strategic alliance aimed at strengthening clinical leadership and practice improvement across the country’s Community Health Centers (CHCs). The announcement carries a dual dateline, Burlington, North Carolina, where Labcorp is headquartered, and Bethesda, Maryland, home to NACHC itself, and centers on a new leadership development program alongside a data-sharing partnership meant to help health centers improve patient outcomes.
What the Alliance Actually Includes
The centerpiece of the partnership is the NACHC Leadership Exchange for Chief Medical Officers, a new program designed to strengthen the leadership, operational, and clinical capabilities of current and emerging CMOs and other clinical leaders at Community Health Centers, through executive development, peer mentorship, and practical learning opportunities built specifically around the challenges CHCs face. Alongside the leadership program, Labcorp and NACHC will collaborate on educational initiatives, practice improvement work, and evidence generation, and the two organizations plan to use de-identified laboratory data to help health centers strengthen quality performance, close gaps in care, and improve patient outcomes. NACHC President and CEO Dr. Kyu Rhee framed the alliance around the scale of what Community Health Centers are already carrying: “Community Health Centers serve as the healthcare home for 52.3 million patients across the country, and strong clinical leadership is essential to meeting growing demands for affordable, comprehensive and effective care. Through this alliance with Labcorp, we are creating new opportunities for clinicians to share best practices and advance innovative approaches that will help health centers improve outcomes for the patients and communities they serve.” Labcorp EVP and President of Diagnostics Bryan Vaughn described the company’s stake in the partnership similarly: “Community Health Centers play a critical role in delivering care to millions of people across the country. Through our work with NACHC, Labcorp is investing in the future of community-based healthcare by helping develop the next generation of clinical leaders and leveraging laboratory data to enhance care delivery and improve outcomes for patients.”
Why Community Health Centers Matter at This Scale
NACHC represents 1,526 Community Health Centers nationwide, describing itself as the largest primary care network in the country. By the organization’s own count, these centers serve roughly 1 in 7 Americans overall and 1 in 3 people in rural areas specifically, a population that depends on CHCs as a primary access point for affordable care regardless of ability to pay. Pairing that network with Labcorp, a diagnostics company that says it supported more than 85% of FDA-approved drugs and therapeutics in 2025 and serves clients in roughly 100 countries, gives NACHC’s member centers access to laboratory data and diagnostic infrastructure at a scale most individual health centers couldn’t build on their own.
