The HRSA Accreditation and Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition Initiative supports health centers working towards better care and lower costs for patients. HRSA supports health centers seeking to achieve:
- Ambulatory health care accreditation and/or
- Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) recognition.
Ambulatory health care accreditation assesses health center quality and patient safety. Accreditation organizations evaluate health centers against standards of quality improvement, quality assurance, risk management, and performance improvement.
PCMH recognition assesses a health center’s approach to patient-centered care. Health centers can achieve PCMH recognition by meeting national standards for primary care that emphasize care coordination and on-going quality improvement.
Benefits
HRSA contracts with three organizations to provide technical assistance and training for their respective recognition processes. These organization are:
- The Joint Commission for ambulatory health care accreditation and PCMH recognition
- The Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care for ambulatory health care accreditation and PCMH recognition
- The National Committee for Quality Assurance for PCMH recognition
HRSA may support certain fees for participating health centers. The fees covered may be associated with initial accreditation and re-accreditation for ambulatory health care accreditation and PCMH recognition, initial, renewal, and add-on surveys.
