In a crowded marketplace of health care research, a new study by the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of California-San Francisco, is getting a lot of attention. Researchers looked into how Community Health Centers stack up in patient care against private practices. This is the first national study to compare ambulatory performance in chronic disease versus private practice offices. It concluded health centers demonstrated equal or better quality performance than private practices on ambulatory quality measures, despite serving patients with more chronic disease and socieoeconomic complexity. You can view the study by visiting this link.
Even better, you can read an article The Atlantic, which notes that the study “bodes well for implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is banking on community health centers’ ability to step up and provide high-quality care for a sizeable portion of the anticipated 32 million newly insured.”
Another a must-read about the value of health centers is a post in today’s Forbes by contributor Carolyn McClanahan. McClanahan makes a very convincing data-driven case about the cost-savings of health centers and observes, “One gem of our health care system is the vast network of Community Health Centers.”