Sparkle Barnes: Keeping the Door to Care Open
Sparkle Barnes is President and CEO of Health Center Partners of Southern California and its Family of Companies, where she leads a network supporting community health centers across the region. Since joining the organization, she has held a series of leadership roles, including Chief Strategy Officer and President of CNECT. Under her leadership, Health Center Partners launched Next50: A Legacy of Impact, a Future of Innovation, a strategic plan focused on strengthening and evolving its work for the years ahead. Her connection to the work is also personal: growing up in a working-class family, she experienced firsthand what it meant when a family could not afford health insurance.
In this episode:
Our health shapes what we’re able to do with our lives: pursue a dream, care for our families, build a career, or simply show up for the people and places that matter to us.
That belief is at the heart of Sparkle Barnes’ work as President and CEO of Health Center Partners, and it is why federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) matter so much.
You may not know what an FQHC is, but there’s a good chance you or someone you know depends on one. Through Health Center Partners’ members alone, community health centers serve roughly 580,000 people in San Diego County. Rooted in the communities they serve, they connect primary care with behavioral health, oral health, and other supports that help people overcome barriers to getting and staying healthy.
In this episode, Sparkle and Grant explore what makes that model so essential and what’s at stake as changes stemming from the H.R.1 bill could leave more people uninsured, and put health centers under immense financial strain. When access to primary care shrinks, the effects ripple outward: people delay care, get sicker, and put greater pressure on emergency rooms and the healthcare system we all rely on.
Sparkle also shares how Health Center Partners is responding through collaboration, innovation, and better data, while keeping the focus on the people behind the numbers. As policy changes unfold, she remains resolute in their mission to help people have the health they need to pursue the lives they imagine for themselves and their families.
Key Moments:
- [6:45] Why being rooted in community helps health centers meet people where they are in life
- [14:12] The surprising scale of federally qualified health centers nationally and in San Diego
- [22:07] What H.R. 1 and changes in health coverage could mean for patients and community health centers
- [27:19] Why investing in primary care is an investment in the entire healthcare system
- [36:20] How better data and patient stories can reveal the real impact of policy changes
Terms
- Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) – Community-based health centers that provide comprehensive primary care and services such as behavioral and oral healthcare, including for patients who are uninsured.
- H.R. 1 – Federal legislation enacted in 2025 that made major changes to Medicaid, called Medi-Cal in California, along with other health and safety-net programs.
- Medi-Cal – California’s Medicaid program and an important source of health coverage for many Californians.
- Atlas – A Health Center Partners initiative, supported by Prebys, designed to track changes in healthcare access closer to real time while also capturing the experiences of patients behind the data.
Resources
- Health Center Partners of Southern California – A network supporting community health centers across San Diego, Riverside, and Imperial counties.
- H.R. 1 and Medi-Cal in California – A California Health Care Foundation guide to how federal H.R. 1 changes could affect Medi-Cal coverage, patients, and California’s healthcare system.
Credits:
This is a production of the Prebys Foundation
Hosted by Grant Oliphant
Co-Hosted by Crystal Page
Produced by Adam Greenfield, Tess Karesky, Edgar Ontiveros Medina, and Crystal Page
Engineered by Adam Greenfield
Production Coordination by Tess Karesky
Video Production by Edgar Ontiveros Medina
The Stop & Talk Theme song was created by San Diego’s own Mr. Lyrical Groove.
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Special thanks to the Prebys Foundation Team
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