Health Center Controlled Network - Based on the 2022 Annual Utilization Report (AUR) from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, California is home to more than 1,300 Community Health Centers (CHCs), including 831 Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), 74 FQHC Look-Alikes, and 15 Rural Health Centers. Together, these CHCs serve more than 7.8 million patients annually through nearly 25 million patient encounters. Of these patients, 53% are Hispanic, 60% are female, 34% have limited English proficiency, and 67% have incomes under 200% of Federal Poverty Level. CHC patients also include special and vulnerable populations, such as agricultural and migrant workers, LGBTQ+, and persons experiencing homelessness. The California Primary Care Association (CPCA) has been the designated PCA for California since 1994 and has a proven track record of supporting CHCs through training and technical assistance (T/TA) activities. CPCA’s robust infrastructure developed to provide T/TA, along with our years of expertise of the CHC landscape, makes CPCA expertly positioned to build a strong and robust HCCN that will increase CPCA’s ability to develop a data-driven infrastructure that will not only benefit those CHCs involved in the HCCN, but all California CHCs. CPCA has developed a three-year strategic plan which includes facilitating favorable conditions for CHCs to increase resources, diversify funding sources, and participate in innovative healthcare delivery solutions and value-based care. One of the foundational elements to achieve this is to leverage health information technology and data to enhance the delivery of affordable, accessible, and high-quality primary care. Becoming an HCCN will allow CPCA to assist participating health centers (PHCs) with data management and analytics and improving bidirectional interoperability with health care providers and community-based organizations to promote readiness and success in value-based care and alternative payment models. Under the proposed project, CPCA will provide resources and T/TA to PHCs through in-person, on-demand, and web-based sessions in the areas of data management and analytics; data sharing and interoperability with Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), health plans, other providers, and Health Information Exchange organizations (HIEs); UDS+ data submission; optimizing data use for Value-Based Care; and Artificial Intelligence. T/TA and resource needs have been identified through qualitative and quantitative data, including analysis of CHC T/TA needs assessments, and federal and state reports that include metrics for CHC performance measures. To maximize resources and impact, CPCA will partner with other organizations, including National Training and Technical Assistance Partner grantees, State Health Departments, EHR and population health management vendors, HIE organizations, and other supporting organizations. By the end of the three-year project period, CPCA will provide approximately 75 formal training and technical assistance sessions to reach participants in all 13 PHCs. These activities will include dissemination and sharing of evidence-based or promising practices from the PHCs and other formal collaboration partners.
