The Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers (AACHC) supports health centers in addressing their challenges in leveraging health information technology (health IT) for value-based care. Under Health Center Controlled Network (HCCN) Grant H2QCS30263 AACHC’s sister organization, Community Health Center Collaborative Ventures, dba Collaborative Ventures Network (CVN), currently supports 29 participating health centers (PHCs) in their efforts to strengthen health IT, thereby advancing clinical and operational improvement, health IT interoperability, and the use of data to reduce cost and enhance clinical and quality outcomes. For purposes of this grant application, AACHC will build on CVN’s strong foundation and has secured commitment from 29 health centers, representing 298 sites (265 permanent, 4 seasonal, 29 mobile). With this FY (Fiscal Year) 2022 HCCN Application AACHC proposes to include all twenty-three (23) eligible health centers in Arizona and six (6) health centers in Nevada.
Reliable patient- and provider-level actionable data is required to enhance patient and provider experience in providing value-based care; however, electronic health record (EHR) limitations and interoperability challenges with other health IT tools continue to present challenges in clinical and non-clinical data capture, integration, analysis, and reporting. Efficient capture and exchange of internally and externally sourced clinical and non-clinical data leads to more effective and culturally competent clinical interventions. Furthermore, it allows providers to address disparities in care and patient barriers. New threats to data exchange arise daily, challenging secure interoperability and access to timely, complete, and accurate health data. Innovative data-driven practices provide value in today’s constantly evolving healthcare environment; however, becoming “data-rich” is not synonymous with being “data-informed” or “data-driven” and PHCs need informatics to promote, support, and improve value-based health care activities and clinical-decision making for their patients and communities.
AACHC will continue and expand support to Participating Health Centers (PHCs) to leverage health IT capacity and resources to enhance patient engagement experiences; provider and care team well-being, advance interoperability; and use data to enhance quality, efficiency, and value providing culturally and linguistically appropriate care and decreasing health disparities and All PHCs use Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)-certified systems, supply data through health information exchange (HIE), and have some experience with health data analytics and reporting, including more than half of the PHCs for whom AACHC aggregates data through a shared comprehensive population health data reporting tool.
AACHC will assist PHCs in development of individualized work plans and provide support and coaching on all aspects of the HCCN Project. AACHC will provide training and technical assistance in collaboration with HRSA’s National Cooperative Agreement for health IT, Primary Care Associations, and other partnerships such as the states’ Medicaid Agencies, HIEs (Health Information Exchanges), and academic institutions. AACHC will also continue to facilitate PHC peer-to-peer learning, focus group meetings, and sharing of promising practices, as well as provide relevant and accurate reports within appropriate and secure health IT.