The Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) recognizes Access Health Louisiana (AHL) for out-performing more than 1,200 community health centers nationwide. AHL ranks in the top 10% of all community health centers in the United States and achieved the highest quality award in the state of Louisiana. “At Access Health Louisiana, our mission is simple--to improve the health of the people we serve,” said Chatrian Kanger, vice president of population health, “and thanks to our collective hard work and dedication, we have consistently year after year, accomplished just that.” HRSA is the federal agency that oversees Community Health Centers across the country. HRSA reviews and ranks health center performance each year on a suite of categories that are inherent to federally qualified health centers, such as expanding access to services, delivering high quality care, reducing disparities, and lowering medical costs for patients.
In 2018, AHL ranked in the top 30%, then moved to the top 20% in 2019. “We knew that we had made significant strides around improving our quality performance in previous years and were seeking out innovative methods to continue to push the quality of our care delivery,” says Kanger. “We invested in our Care Teams, expanded our chronic disease management program for Medicare patients, as well as adopting a team-based care model of care delivery. Our in-house pharmacy that opened in 2018 has also rapidly grown to ensure that patients never lapse in their medication regimens. We also deliver rapid feedback in the form of data to our providers and care teams around their individual performance on organizational goals and national benchmarks. These are no small feats. I’ve worked with health centers across this state and regionally for more than 15 years now, and it takes monumental effort to achieve this level of performance.”
AHL also broke into new award categories, earning additional incentives and recognition as follows: Access Enhancer Award - expanding access to more patients overall as well as in service categories”, a Health Disparities Reducer award - for improving health outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities, and Patient Centered Medical Home recognition.
HRSA released more than $117 million dollars this month to support quality improvement efforts at health centers across the nation. Here in Louisiana, 33 health centers received a combined total of more than $2.56 million of those federal dollars. Those dollars are ear-marked to strengthen quality improvement activities as well as expand or enhance service delivery. Health centers deliver comprehensive care to people who are low-income, uninsured or face other obstacles to getting health care. On top of the safety-net that they provide, health centers have been on the front lines preventing and responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency, including providing more than 3 million COVID-19 tests. Health centers continue to provide essential services for our nation’s most vulnerable and medically underserved populations, including those who often do not have access to care, before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Access Health Louisiana operates 32 community health centers and school-based health centers in southeast Louisiana. No patient is ever turned away for care due to an inability to pay. For appointments, call toll-free 1 (866) 530-6111 or visit accesshealthla.org.