Growing Medical Technology
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently awarded Health Center Quality Improvement grants for the 2016 fiscal year.
This year local medical non-profits, Cornerstone Care, based in Fayette, Greene, Monongalia and Washington counties; and Centerville Clinics, based in Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties, received funding through the program.
The grant will allow health centers to invest back into their patients by providing improvement to health center services.
鈥淭o further its commitment to improve the overall quality, efficiency and value of health care services for the millions of patients served at health centers, HRSA (Health Resources and Service Administration) has established a program to invest in health center quality improvement,鈥� said Judy Andrews, deputy director, office of communications with HRSA.
In order to receive the money, the health centers needed to have their operation and performance reviewed while tracking a variety of information, including patient demographics, services provided, staffing, clinical indicators, utilization rates, costs and revenues.
More than $100.2 million was awarded to 1,304 health centers across the country including $60,813 to Centerville Clinics and $72,100 to Cornerstone Care.
鈥淭hese formula-based awards are provided to high-performing health centers nationwide as well as those health centers that have made significant quality improvement gains in the past year to expand access to care, improve care quality and outcomes, increase comprehensive care delivery in a cost effective way and advance equity,鈥� said Andrews. 鈥淔urther, these awards support health centers in maintaining patient centered medical home (PCMH) recognition.鈥�
鈥淚t (the grant money) is really because we are making progress and performing well when it comes to quality indicators HHS is tracking,鈥� said Richard Rinehart, CEO of Cornerstone Care. 鈥淭hey are tracking and providing incentives in many cases for private practice doctors to achieve certain standards of care. That is a good thing. We have invested a lot of our research into health information technology including health information records. It has been a challenge for us to do that. We are a non-profit organization and we have limited resources. But, I can also tell you I have seen the payoff. It is already here.鈥�
The funding for these grant awards came from the Affordable Care Act鈥檚 Community Health Center Fund, which was extended in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, according to Andrews.
While the organizations just received conformation of the money, they still have a few ballpark ideas of how the funds will be used to better their patients and the quality of care they are able to provide.
鈥淲e haven鈥檛 decided what we are going to do with it yet. We have several projects related to our data analysis and networking. We haven鈥檛 allocated it among those yet,鈥� said James Quinn, executive director of Centerville Clinics. 鈥淚t has to be used within 12 months. The activities which can be included with the use of this money is in our house information technology and our certified electronic health networks, which we are constantly updating and improving. We have several different projects going on. It will be used to improve our health information technology and our electronic health records.鈥�
Rinehart said they will also be using the money to help improve their electronic infrastructure.
鈥淥ur doctors and other health providers are using these electronic health records. One is to document information in such a way in that it can be retrieved for producing the reports on the progress of the (patient鈥檚) measures. We can pull data from the records. When we had paper charts that was impossible. The other purpose of electronic records is to be a prompter in terms of making sure we are dotting all the I鈥檚 and crossing all the T鈥檚. There are standards included like keeping a diabetic patient鈥檚 blood pressure in a certain matter. When something isn鈥檛 entered there is a bell or a whistle that goes off saying 鈥淗ey check for the retinal eye exam (for diabetics).鈥� These records are supposed to help the providers do that. They aren鈥檛 perfect but they are progressing,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e will use it to beef up our reporting and pull data out of the records and use it for continual training for our care team and for these efforts for continual quality improvement. We are dedicated. We are trying to have a culture that is trying to learn and constantly improving.鈥�