River Hills Community Health Center receives recognitions

Community health centers in Iowa are leading the nation in helping patients achieve their healthiest lives. Each year, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recognizes outstanding achievements by Health Center Program awardees in the areas of quality, access, health equity, health information technology, and COVID-19 public health emergency response for the most recently completed calendar year by awarding Community Health Quality Recognition (CHQR) badges.

Last week, River Hills Community Health Center received 4 CHQR badges from HRSA.

River Hills has locations in Fairfield and Richland.

River Hills Community Health Center received recognition as: Health Center Quality Leader (Gold), Access Enhancer, Health Disparities Reducer and Patient Centered Medical Home.

· Health Center Quality Leader: awarded to those achieving the best overall clinical quality measure (CQM) performance among all health centers. Health centers in the top 30% are recognized in the following tiers: Gold (top 10%), Silver (top 11-20$), and Bronze (top 21-30%).

· Access Enhancer: recognizes health centers that:

Have earned at least one Community Health Quality Leader or National Quality Leader badge or have improved by at least 15% in one or more Clinical Quality Measures (CQM) in back-to-back reporting years.

Increased the total number of patients and the number of patients who receive at least one comprehensive service (mental health, substance abuse, vision, dental, and/or enabling) by at least 5% during the reporting period.

· Health Disparities Reducer: recognizes health centers that:

Demonstrate at least a 10% improvement in the areas of low birth weight, hypertension, or uncontrolled diabetes in CQM and must have improved during the two most recent back-to-back reporting years for at least one racial/ethnic group. Also, must perform as well or better than the previous year for CQM at the health center level.

Meet targets for all racial/ethnic groups in the areas of low birth weight, hypertension, and uncontrolled diabetes.

· Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH): Recognizes health centers with PCMH recognition in one or more delivery sites.

River Hills Community Health Center is a member of the Iowa Primary Care Association (Iowa PCA), a nonprofit membership association that supports community health centers across the state with training and technical assistance. “We are proud of our member community health centers for their incredible achievements in providing quality care to nearly 250,000 Iowans each year,” said Aaron Todd, Chief Executive Officer of the Iowa Primary Care Association. “We all know that Iowans are humble by nature and so I greatly appreciate this recognition of the passionate and hardworking community health centers who – often without fanfare or significant recognition – are doing the necessary work each and every day to ensure access to high quality, affordable healthcare services in under-resourced urban and rural communities all across our state. And, in fact, Iowa’s community health centers are leading the nation in the quality of services provided.”

“River Hills Community Health Center served 22,201 patients in the southeastern Iowa region last year. Our staff reaches out to our patients to ensure that they are receiving the best care possible. The Community Health Quality Recognition designating us as a Gold level awardee is an honor that only 140 clinics out of over 1,400 centers across the United States received. We are in the top 10%! We appreciate this recognition from the Health Resource and Services Administration. It takes every person at River Hills Community Health Center clinics to achieve this level of excellence. Our patients are our priority, and we care for them like our own family.”

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