Community Health Centers Falling Short in Some Quality of Care Categories

Federal data shows that community health centers are falling short on providing some types of care, according to a USA Today-Kaiser Health News report.

Since 2008, the nearly 1,200 federally funded community health centers across the U.S. have been required to submit data to the federal government to track six performance measures: quality of care for patients with diabetes, quality of care for patients with high blood pressure, cervical cancer screening rates, percentage of children getting vaccinated, timely prenatal care delivery and the rate of low birth-weight babies.  

Here are some findings from analysis of the 2010 data set submitted to the government:

• Community health centers in the south on average performed worse in comparison to community health centers in New England, the Midwest and California

• Three out of four community health centers performed significantly worse comparing rates for screening women for cervical cancer to the national average.

• Nearly three-quarters of community health clinics performed significantly below average in helping diabetics maintain proper blood sugar levels.

• More than 25 percent performed well below the national average for immunizing two-year-olds.

These numbers are concerning to some public health officials because, if the Supreme Court upholds the PPACA, many of the 30 million newly insured Americans will be looking to community health clinics for primary care. Community health centers face unique challenges with a patient population six times as likely to be poor, twice as likely to be uninsured and three times as likely to be on Medicaid.

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