Decreasing health disparities through collaboration
As primary care providers in underserved communities, health centers play a vital role in the detection and prevention of disease. With linguistic and cultural barriers, immigrant and limited English-speaking communities are more likely to forgo life-saving screenings and immunizations that prevent diseases such as cervical cancer. To combat this issue, the Health and Life Organization (HALO) and the UC Davis Division of Hematology and Oncology and Comprehensive Cancer Center have formed a collaborative with a grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation to improve screening rates of Asian American and Pacific Islander patients at risk for cancer, and to ensure patients at risk for cancer access oncology services.
Community Health Centers Address Substance Use Disorders
Community health centers (CHCs) are leading the statewide effort to respond to the opioid epidemic. Since 2016, they have almost doubled the number of providers possessing an x-waiver to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid dependency, as well as the number of patients receiving Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT). This has enabled health centers to continue to be responsive to their community’s proliferating need for expanded substance abuse services.
Immigration update
The California Primary Care Association (CPCA) has been a leader in advocating for the rights of our immigrant patients and employees. CPCA ramped up its involvement on this issue after member health centers reported an increase of fear in immigrant patients and employees after various executive orders were leaked in 2017, including one on public charge. This led us to create various resources, like sample policies and procedures that health centers can adopt to prepare for an immigration raid, FAQs to help health centers better understand their rights against immigration enforcement, Know Your Rights information, talking points for frontline staff to help answer questions from immigrant patients and an immigration resources page where members and the public can access all the resources we’ve created along with other materials created by our immigrant partners.
CPCA summer intern program a huge success
This summer, CPCA hosted four health professions students through our annual Summer Intern Program. CPCA’s Summer Intern Program was developed to provide real life work experience and opportunities for students wishing to enter the public health and health care delivery space, with a special emphasis on exposing students to primary care and community health center workforce opportunities. The goals of our intern program are simple - to increase the diversity of public health and health care leaders working within community health professions, and to further expand the potential leadership pipeline for the Association.
Billing Managers and CFO Conferences bring financial matters to the forefront
CPCA’s 2018 Billing Managers and Chief Financial Officers Conferences brought over 350 participants including Finance Directors, CHC Executives, CFOs, Billing Managers and Patient Account Managers to the Portola Hotel and Spa in beautiful Monterey, California on August 14-17 to meet, discuss and learn about issues that impact billing processes and the potential changes and challenges that health centers will face in the coming years.
Don’t Miss CPCA’s 2018 Annual Conference
Join us at the Convention Center in downtown Sacramento on October 4 and 5 for CPCA’s 2018 Annual Conference! Our theme this year is “The Next Era in Community Health.” Our program will feature keynotes and breakout sessions that highlight how health centers are continuing to innovate and envision new approaches to improving the health and wellbeing of their communities.
CPCA works to increase clinical staff engagement
Over the years, CPCA has strived to be more inclusive of clinicians and the clinical staff within our community health centers. Since bringing on Dr. Mike Witte as our CMO in 2016, we have worked to engage with clinical staff through both the Clinicians Committee, as well as the CMO newsletter that was developed this year. In the last three months, CPCA has developed a Clinical Affairs team in an effort to work more effectively with Dr. Witte, to help increase community health center clinical staff engagement and involvement in existing and future CPCA activities.
Member appreciation, member feedback drives July Board and Committee meetings
CPCA’s July Board and Committee meetings were held in Sacramento July 12-13, providing members updates on issues impacting community health centers and their patients. CPCA staff and members engaged in important dialogue on issues impacting them the most and members provided CPCA staff with important input on upcoming work priorities.
