NACHC Washington Update

Health Centers on the Frontlines of the War Against AIDS/HIV

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt has announced $22 million in grants for early intervention HIV/AIDS care and services to medically underserved populations-- and over community-based health centers, migrant health centers, hospitals, and other entities in 23 states and Puerto Rico will receive early intervention services grants under Part C of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. Health centers are criticle to the war against AIDS. More than 80% of health centers provide HIV-specific medical or social services for patients, and over 90% of health centers offer HIV/STD risk education, counseling and psychosocial evaluation. You can read more about what health centers do for AIDS/HIV prevention here. You can read the HHS press release here.

Narrowing Health Disparities

Health disparities is the disease gap that exists between whites and minority populations. Minorities suffer a disproportionate share of chronic disease largely due to uninsurance and lack of accessible and affordable health care. Reducing health disparities is what Community Health Centers do best. In fact, the Health Centers' Diabetes Health Disparities Collaborative (HDC) gets top marks in a new report. The current issue of Health Services Research says many improvements in diabetes care occurred during the first four years of the HDC program. Researchers found many aspects of care improved significantly from 1998 to 2002 especially in patients' blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels, kidney function, and vision. Prescriptions of ACE inhibitors and aspirin also increased significantly. The research team also reports that the program cost per patient was $700 in the first year, $600 in the second and $500 in the third. It leveled off to $378 by the beginning of the fourth year. You can read the full story here.

The Digital Divide

Community Health Centers lag behind the private sector in adopting electronic medical records (EMRS), writes Doug Smith, a health center leader in North Carolina. Doug is also the chief executive officer and chief information officer of Community Partners HealthNet, Inc. and is president and chief executive officer of Greene County Health Care. He's passionate about the issue of affordable health care in rural North Carolina, but also about getting more health centers on board the Health Information Technology (HIT) train. In an article published in Health Leaders Media Smith writes that cost is a major factor in getting started. Health centers operate on tight budgets, and bringing in IT professionals can be expensive. Where to start? Smith writes about his own experiences crossing the digital divide, writing, that health centers need to rally a "network organization for group purchasing of an EMR as well as for the IT expertise and resources to manage and support the software. An EMR is just not otherwise affordable or practical for most health centers alone."

Doug is shown here receiving the 2006 Grassroots Hall of Fame award from Marc Wetherhorn, Advocacy Director of the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). The award is presented to individuals who have made invaluable contributions to insuring the creation, survival and strength of the health centers program.

Nothing Could Be Finer....

Nothing could be finer than good affordable health care in Carolina. That would be North Carolina, the eastern part of the state where the pit barbeque rules and the August summers are so hot it can melt the tar right off the road. That's where good things are happening in heatlh care. Greene County Health Care, Inc. , a federally qualified health center that has won national recognition for its innovation and quality, has opened a new site that offers both medical and dental services. Read more here. Download Safetynet.pdf

Funding Opportunities for Health Centers

The mayors are looking for a few good HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. The United States Conference of Mayors in cooperation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, has issued a Request for Proposals for the HIV/AIDS Prevention Grants Program. Proposals will be accepted for two tracks-- one must address the implementation of HIV/AIDS prevention services targeting Native Americans. Track two proposals must address the implementation of HIV/AIDS prevention services targeting African American or Hispanic Women at high risk of HIV infection.

The grants total approximately $530,000. The complete Request for Proposals can be downloaded from the USCM Web site. It's worth noting that America's health centers have been in the trenches on HIV/AIDs prevention. Over 400,000 patients received an HIV test at a health center last year, according to NACHC data.

More on ER Use

from the blog "FierceHealthCare: The Maryland Health Care Commission has found that a third of all Maryland's emergency room visits are for non-emergency conditions that could be treated in another setting. Over a one-year period, 2.3 million patients visited Maryland ERs. "Of those visits...18 percent were for conditions that weren't emergencies at all, and 17 percent required rapid treatment but could have been dealt with in primary care doctors' offices." State legislatures are concerned by this over-use because non-emergency patients turning to the emergency department NACHC has also looked into avoidable visits to the ER and has a state by state break down. In our finding, $320,407,97 a year is wasted on visits to the ER that could have been redirected to a Community Health Center or other community provider. Maryland is paying a heavy price for its underserved-- over 165,476 residents don't have access to a primary health care doctor. Check it out here.

2006 Factoid Snap Shots

• The U.S. Census announced the number of U.S. residents without health insurance increased by 1.3 million to a record 46.6 million individuals, or almost one in six Americans.
• The largest and fastest growing segment of uninsured is young adults between the ages of 19 and 29, according to a Commonwealth Fund report.
• The number of U.S. employers offering health benefits at no cost to employees decreased, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
• George Washington University School of Public Health issues a study showing that the health center quality of care is as good or better than other primary health care providers.
• The Journal of the American Medical Association released a study showing that shortages of physicians – more than 400 vacant positions for family physicians – may threaten health center expansions.
• NACHC issued a report (Legacy of a Disaster: Hurricane Katrina: One Year Later), in August documenting that Health Centers in over 30 states treated nearly 70,000 evacuees, mostly uninsured, in the weeks after Katrina – and many were still treating them a year later.
• NACHC, Harvard University’s Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement, the Community Clinics Initiative, and The California Endowment, issued a fact sheet showing that while 18% of private, office-based primary care physicians reported using electronic medical records, only 8% of health centers currently report using a full EMR.

Factoid Alert

So you might be wondering to yourself, "Why don't I know as much about health centers as I think I do?" Our answer: we don't know. But now we have updated fact sheets about health centers that covers a lot of territory: cost, quality, health disparities (and what health centers are doing about them). It's worth a look at http://www.nachc.com/research/ssbysdat.asp

We're also especially pleased to announce our newest fact sheet: "America's Health Centers: Making Every Dollar Count." Factoid highlights include how much money is wasted on avoidable visits to hospital ER rooms: http://www.nachc.com/research/Files/Cost%20Effectiveness%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf.