WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) last week announced that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is awarding $1,259,650 in Quality Improvement Awards to 18 health centers in Kansas, including Heart of Kansas Family Health Care, Great Bend.
Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, Kansas health centers will use these awards to improve the quality, efficiency and value of the health care they provide.
“Health centers across Kansas provide an invaluable service to their communities, and the health-care professionals they employ are committed to improving outcomes for Kansans,” said Sen. Moran. “This HHS grant funding will make certain these centers have the resources to continue providing high-quality care. I’m pleased to support the work of these health centers and will continue to work with HHS and health center leadership to advance the wellness of Kansans.”
There were 17 other Kansas Health Center Quality Improvement FY2019 grant recipients.
By providing patients access to high quality, value-based care, health centers are uniquely positioned to meet the nation’s most pressing health care needs, as well as emerging health priorities. HRSA-funded health centers are the first line of care in combatting the nation’s opioid crisis. In 2018, health centers screened nearly 1.1 million people for substance use disorder and ultimately provided medication-assisted treatment to nearly 95,000 patients nationwide, Moran stated.
HRSA-funded health centers are also playing an important role in the White House Initiative Ending the HIV Epidemic by serving as a key point of entry for the detection, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of HIV. In 2018 alone, health centers provided over 2.4 million HIV tests to more than two million patients. Nationwide, health centers provide care to 1 in 6 patients diagnosed with HIV.
HRSA’s Quality Improvement Awards recognize the work that health centers do to address health priorities by designating health centers that ranked in the top 1-2% in one or more key areas – behavioral health, diabetes prevention and management and heart health – as National Quality Leaders. The top 30% of health centers that achieve the best overall clinical performance receive designation as Health Center Quality Leaders.
These awards also recognize health center achievements in other areas, including improving cost-efficient care delivery while also increasing quality of care, reducing health disparities, increasing both the number of patients served and patients’ ability to access comprehensive services, advancing the use of health information technology, and delivering patient-centered care.
For more than 50 years, health centers have delivered affordable, accessible, quality and cost-effective primary health care services to patients. Today, nearly 1,400 health centers operate approximately 12,000 service delivery sites that provide care to more than 28 million patients nationwide.
Moran is a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Related Agencies.
