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In response to the phenomenal national growth of Project Access, America Project Access Network (APAN) has been created to advocate and assist in the replication of Project Access. Project Access is a sustainable, integrated healthcare system providing universal, on-demand access to the full continuum of health care for all low-income uninsured citizens. Project Access started in 1996 in Buncombe County (Asheville, NC), a western North Carolina community of 206,330 citizens (2000 census) and has since been replicated across the country from rural communities of less than 19,000 population to major metropolitan areas of over 2,000,000 population.

Project Access works by using the already established components of healthcare and allowing them to operate in a coordinated, efficient method. Private specialist, primary care physicians and area hospitals donate care to patients referred from community-based neighborhood primary clinics or other healthcare providers. City/County government and/or other agencies fund medications prescribed by private physicians seeing patients for free in their practices. Physician volunteer commitments and patient referrals can be managed through a centralized and on line database developed for system coordination. Community-based clinics in partnership with Medicaid enrollment specialists conduct outreach, financial assessments and enrollments. Pharmacies donate counseling and dispensing services.

Many communities across the nation have community-based systems of care in place that are using Project Access guides and ideals and over 60 additional communities are at various stages of implementation of either a Project Access systems of care for the low-income, uninsured or a similar model of care borrowing from the success of Project Access.