In the fall of 2000, Daviess County Fiscal Court began to look for ways to meet the needs of its medically under served citizens, estimated at 13,000. Research led to the Bureau of Primary Health Care's (BPHC) nationwide 100% Access/0 Disparities Campaign. This effort strives to provide assistance to communities that are trying to improve access to healthcare for everyone by eliminating health status disparities. An organization called Communities in Action is working in concert with the BPHC to assist communities that are striving toward this goal. After becoming exposed to this nationwide effort, Daviess County Fiscal Court “signed on” as a 100%/0 community and began exploring ways to achieve this objective.

Daviess County 's first step toward becoming a 100%/0 community was to create a three-way partnership to improve access to healthcare for the uninsured. This partnership provided a full-time staff for the McAuley Clinic consisting of a primary care physician, a nurse and a case manager. The Green River District Health Department (GRDHD) funded the nurse to triage patients and assist the physician, Daviess County Fiscal Court paid for the case manager to educate patients and connect them with other community resources and the Owensboro Mercy Health System financially sponsored the physician to provide care, make referrals to specialists and dispense medications. The hospital also agreed to donate diagnostic services and overhead support.

Having the ability to see patients five days a week allowed the clinic to increase its volume by over 200% from just over 3,300 visits to over 8,200 visits annually, providing care to 1,600 individual patients. The clinic also had the opportunity to distribute over 8,000 prescriptions, approximately 40 per day, at an average cost of $57.00. However, the clinic had a maximum capacity of 30 patients a day on a first-come first-serve basis. The patients that had to be turned away had to seek care elsewhere. Since more gaps were becoming apparent, the partnership had to develop another strategy to address these needs.

While seeking alternate ways to improve access, the partnership became exposed to a concept hatched in North Carolina , Project Access. This community-wide program encourages collaboration between all stakeholders in the healthcare community: physicians, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and patients. After speaking with leaders in the North Carolina community, the three partners agreed to pursue the creation of a similar program in Daviess County . With that, DC-CAP was born.