Washington Association For Community Health

Policy and advocacy:in the last fiscal year, the association's policy and advocacy team has continued to advocate for the reauthorization of the federal community health center fund and the protection of washington's healthcare safety net system, secured capital funds for dental clinic expansions, and advanced legislative conversations on value based payment. The association policy and advocacy team provided consistent and considerable technical assistance to community health centers in understanding federal and state programs, operationalizing policy and regulatory changes, and navigating the policy and regulatory environment.

Care improvement & innovation:the association works with federally qualified health centers to provide technical assistance, training, and learning opportunities for quality improvement staff, medical directors, pharmacists, behavioral health providers, dental directors, emergency preparedness managers, hr professionals, and clinical care teams. Some accomplishments for the year ended december 31, 2024 included: convened 6 sessions of building skills in sexual health series to focus on comprehensive sexual health skills and hiv/sti diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Convened 3 medical director learning meetings focused on clinical operations, optimizing patient access, and innovative care models. Convened 3 human resources learning meetings focused on a.i. In the healthcare workforce, recruitment and retention, and the ahec program. Convened 3 pharmacy learning meetings focused on the 340b program, workforce issues, and pharmacy regulations and operations. Convened 3 behavioral health learning meetings focused on clinical practices, loan repayment programs, continuity of care, and opioid use disorder. Convened 4 learning meetings for financial operations leaders to promote financial resiliency and share promising practices in revenue cycle management. Convened 3 dental learning meetings focused on preventive oral care, dental workforce, and oral health operational issues. Convened 2 emergency preparedness learning meetings focused on addressing emergency preparedness needs at health centers, basic business concepts, and ep coalition engagement. Partnered with upstream usa to provide training and technical assistance to health centers to improve the provision of patient-centered, noncoercive access to contraception. Partnered with northwest regional primary care association to host an integrated care conference series focused on behavioral health and primary care integration and collaboration on common conditions. Partnered with university of washington colonoscopy outreach for rural communities program to provide patient navigation toward colonoscopy completion. Hosted a uds reporting training series to support health center staff in submitting accurate and timely data.

Health access:the association provided technical assistance, training, and learning opportunities for health center staff to increase health access. In addition, the association participated on multiple statewide workgroups to support chc practices that reach washington's most underserved populations. Some accomplishments for the year ended december 31, 2024, included: convened 2 outreach & enrollment learning meetings focused on medicaid open enrollment and outreach challenges.convened 2 community health worker learning meetings focused on sharing best practices for chw programs among peers. Hosted training to spread health center practices in addressing food and housing insecurity and supporting patient digital navigation. Purchasing:worked with over 100 federally qualified health clinics in washington, oregon, idaho and alaska to help bring them better prices for goods and services.