Our Services: Reducing Health Disparities
The Network is deeply invested in improving clinical quality evaluation
and technology information tools that will help our members measure
and impact health disparity goals. A primary challenge for community
health providers is to decrease health disparities among targeted
populations, particularly for chronic diseases such as diabetes. As the front-line
providers with expertise in caring for economically and ethnically
diverse populations, Network clinics are aware of the
opportunity to impact long-term health and avoid costly emergency
and severe health situations through effective health education
and regular preventive services. Our providers are continually
looking for clinical and health education interventions that will
improve patient outcomes related to areas of identified health
disparities.
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The Neighborhood Health Care Network actively supports our members’
efforts by providing the tools necessary to measure process and
outcomes in targeted health disparities. In particular, our members
who receive funding from the Bureau of Primary Health Care as Federally
Qualified Health Centers are required to participate in Health Disparities
Collaboratives. Health Disparity Collaboratives are a nationally
coordinated effort developed to change primary health care practices
in order to eliminate health disparities for underserved Americans.
The Disparity Collaboratives’ care model utilizes a proactive
health care team that supports patient self-management for chronic
diseases such as diabetes, cancer, asthma, cardiovascular disease
and depression. Each clinic must put together the resources necessary
to implement the treatment model for a targeted disease. Network
members are participating in the Depression, Cardiovascular and
Diabetes Collaboratives.
In partnership with the Minnesota Primary
Care Association, the Network secured funding in 2003 to hire
a quality improvement specialist
to help clinics statewide develop better evaluation and assessment
models for Health Disparity Collaboratives. A registered nurse
with specialized training in health care quality, this staff
person works with clinics on an individual basis to share and implement
best practices in quality improvement and serves as a centralized
resource for information, training and technical assistance on
clinical systems necessary for effective tracking of health disparity
improvement efforts. By giving health centers the tools and learning
opportunities to make system changes proven to more effectively
treat targeted populations, the Network is helping to close the
gap on chronic disease health disparities.
For more information on this business area, please contact:
Health Disparities: betty.hanna@nhcn.org
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