We know it would be rude to sing our praises, but what if someone else already is? San Fernando Community Health Center is being celebrated by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) for improvements in healthcare.
Each year, HRSA awards Community Health Quality Recognition badges to federally qualified health centers (or look-alikes) who show quality improvements in access, quality, equity, health information technology, or Covid-19 public health emergency response. For 2023, San Fernando earned not one, not two, but FIVE of these badges for our performance in clinical quality measures (CQM). (That means we get to toot our own horn five ways.)
Awardees of this badge are determined by their Adjusted Quartile Ranking, which ranks CQM performance while considering the center’s percentage of patients who are uninsured, racial or ethnic minorities, experiencing homelessness, migrants or seasonal farm workers, and whether the center uses electronic health records. Only health centers with AQR averages in the top 10% receive the gold badge, as San Fernando is proud to say we did!
This badge means that San Fernando increased both its total number of patients and the number of patients receiving mental health, substance use disorder, vision, dental, or enabling services by at least 5% in successive years. In those same years, we also improved our performance by at least 15% in adult BMI, HIV screening, controlling high blood pressure, and positive HIV follow-up measures. Earning a HCQL badge was also a requirement.
To earn this badge, San Fernando earned the Access Enhancer badge and improved by at least 10% in the high blood pressure control CQM for at least one racial or ethnic group in consecutive years. This improvement was also a requirement for performance at the health center level.
This badge required us to meet several criteria, and we did!
The work we did to qualify for the other badges helped make earning this badge possible: San Fernando collected data on patient social risk factors and increased the number of patients receiving enabling services between the last two reporting years.
It’s fun to pat ourselves on the back, but our favorite way to celebrate these achievements is sharing them with our patients. Visit San Fernando Community Health Center today and enjoy award-winning services for yourself!
