Blue Shield of California Foundation Awards the Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County $150,000 to Improve Data Capacity of Community Health Centers

[Santa Cruz, 12/28/11] -- Blue Shield of California Foundation (BSCF) announced that it was awarding the Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County (HIP) $150,000 to improve the data collection, analysis, and sharing capacity of its member community health centers.  By improving understanding and use of data, community health centers will be able to provide better quality care to the low-income Californians they serve.  

“HIP plays an important role in Santa Cruz County’s safety net and their leadership using data to improve care is timely,” said Peter Long, Ph.D., president and CEO of BSCF. “We are focused on supporting state’s safety net providers to become a first-class system of care for vulnerable Californians.”

This is one of nine grants made to clinic consortia in California to advance efforts to use financial, clinical, and operational indicators to improve health centers’ performance. With these indicators, health centers will know the demographics of their clients, chronic conditions that need to be managed, and areas of care that need to be improved. Ultimately, these data will be critical to tying payment to health outcomes when health reform is fully implemented, helping community health centers be competitive providers offering quality care to their patients.

Blue Shield of California Foundation (www.blueshieldcafoundation.org) is one of the state’s largest healthcare grantmaking organizations. The Foundation was formed by Blue Shield of California, a not-for-profit corporation with more than 3.4 million members, 4,800 employees, and 20 offices throughout California.

HIP is a nonprofit coalition of public and private health care organizations dedicated to increasing access to care and building a stronger health care delivery system in Santa Cruz County. HIP’s mission is to unite public and private health care providers and key community stakeholders to share information, identify problems and take action to expand access to health care services and improve health outcomes for all residents, with special attention to the uninsured.

--Margareta Brandt