Heartland Community Health Center gets $133,036 federal grant

Heartland Community Health Center in Lawrence has received a $133,036 grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration.

The funds are a portion of $63.3 million made available through the Affordable Care Act, which were given to 1,153 health centers across the country. Heartland, 346 Maine St., is one of 14 health centers in Kansas to receive funds and will receive the largest amount of any health center in the state.

Health centers receiving these funds are being recognized for high levels of performance in several categories.

“All of the funding is being awarded because of quality improvement factors from 2013 to 2014,” said Sean Hatch, Heartland’s communications coordinator. Heartland’s funds were awarded based on performance in several categories.

• $15,000 for reporting on patients using electronic health records. Heartland uses the records to do more than track patient care. “Our electronic health records help us look at statistics to find out how we’re doing, where we can make improvements,” Hatch said. “It’s more than just the fact that we keep electronic health records, it’s the way we use them.”

• $13,036 for demonstrating improvements in one or more clinical areas. HRSA requires health centers to keep track and measure several clinical areas, such as monitoring diabetes patients and those with controlled hypertension, cervical cancer screening and depression screening. Heartland showed improvement in several of those areas to earn the award.

• $30,000 for increasing the total number of patients it served and the number of patients receiving comprehensive services between 2013 and 2014. In 2013, Heartland had 5,872 patient encounters; in 2014, the health center had 8,984 patient encounters. “A patient might have two or three encounters in a single visit,” Hatch said. All in one trip, for instance, a patient might see a health care provider, a smoking cessation specialist and a mental health counselor.

• $75,000 for improving cost-efficient care delivery compared to the national average while also increasing quality of care and improving access to comprehensive services between 2013 and 2014. “It’s based on data that shows we have significantly reduced our cost per patient visit,” said Heartland CEO Jon Stewart. The cost per patient visit went down dramatically from 2013 to 2014, he said, and that decrease in cost is continuing in 2015. “It shows that we’ve become more effective in our care coordination,” he said. “We are more efficient in the way we get our work done.”

Heartland and other recipients will use the funds to expand current quality improvement systems and infrastructure and improve primary care service delivery in the communities they serve.

The Kansas health centers to receive the next highest awards were Health Ministries Inc., in Newton, $100,250; and Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas Inc., in Pittsburg, $99,268.