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Initiatives
Community Clinics Funders' Collaborative In 2009, the Harris County Healthcare Alliance launched a three year, $12 million dollar campaign to expand and strengthen the primary care safety net system of Harris County. To date, the Alliance has raised over $9 million from the following organizations in support of a number of initiatives to be funded under this umbrella program:
Baxter Trust
Community Health Choice, Inc.
Cullen Trust for Health Care
Fondren Foundation
George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation
Houston Endowment, Inc.
John S. Dunn Research Foundation
Ray C. Fish Foundation
Rockwell Fund
St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities
Simmons Foundation
The Alliance is responsible for utilizing funds raised to support collaborative projects among community clinics and other safety net providers that will expand primary care safety net capacity in a responsible and sustainable manner. Projects initiated during 2010 include the creation of the first formal affiliation between a federally qualified health center and Texas Children's Pediatric Associates, launching of weeknight and weekend primary care appointment capacity at three community clinics in areas of high inappropriate ER utilization, piloting a partnership between two federally qualified health centers and the Harris County Hospital District to expand primary care access, and the formation of a formal community clinic network to enable Harris County's safety-net clinics to coordinate and implement collaborative projects and services focused on achieving sustainable clinic capacity, reducing duplication, and improving quality as well as access to care. Additional projects are under development and will be funded after expert review of their potential to achieve the desired three year performance goals. Click here to view A Model for Sustainable Safety Net Clinics in Harris County
TexHealth Harris County 3-Share Plan TexHealth Harris County 3-Share Plan is an affordable health benefits plan sponsored by the Harris County Healthcare Alliance and designed to help low income employees afford healthcare coverage by subsidizing eligible employees' portions of the monthly premiums. It is available through small employers (defined as those with 2 to 50 employees) who have not offered group health insurance in the past 12 months.
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Greater Houston Health Information Exchange The Harris County Healthcare Alliance and the Center for Houston's Future partnered to launch a non-profit corporation, the Greater Houston Health Information Exchange or GHHIE, to facilitate electronic health information exchange for the greater Houston community. The GHHIE is governed by a community-based board of regional healthcare, business and civic sector representatives initially recruited by the Alliance and the Center. A health information exchange will allow patients' health data is to be electronically transmitted between and among authorized users such as the patient, doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers, in accordance with all privacy and security protections and regulations.
Houston Fire Department TeleHealth Nurse Triage Program The TeleHealth Nurse Triage Program is a collaborative effort launched in June of 2008 by the City of Houston Fire Department and Harris County Healthcare Alliance. Through contractual relationships with Harris County RIDES and participating community clinics the program seeks to: 1) connect callers with medical homes, 2) decrease inappropriate ambulance dispatches, and 3) improve ambulance response times.
Legislative Advocacy The Harris County Healthcare Alliance is very active in educating the community at large, and responsible local, state and federal policymakers about the current state of the healthcare delivery system in Houston/Harris County and ways it can be improved. The Alliance has recently established federal and state task forces to track, analyze, and make recommendations regarding national health reform and its impacts at the state and local levels. Prior to each Texas Legislature, the Alliance produces a consensus agenda from Member organization priorities. The Alliance hosts educational presentations and other forums open to its Member organizations on a regular basis.
Reporting In support of the Alliance goal to raise awareness of the healthcare system and its impact on our community's health, the Harris County Healthcare Alliance produces several annual reports that track and analyze data that pertains to some of our community's more pressing issues.
Community Benefits Reporting - All Texas non-profit hospitals are required to provide an annual report of their required community benefits spending. The Alliance compiles and reports these results for the greater Houston area hospitals with the long term goal of fostering coordinated efforts between the organizations to better address the needs of the community.
Harris County Community Clinic Performance Indicators – The Alliance facilitated consensus among local area philanthropic organizations who have traditionally supported Houston's community clinics and the executives of those community clinics regarding a standard set of performance indicators that would be consistently tracked and reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of investments in those key safety net providers. This analysis was first conducted by Health Management Associates for their 2008 Strategic Assessment of Primary Care Capacity in Harris County report commissioned by the Alliance. The Alliance now annually compiles and produces these reports internally.
Texas Hospital Discharge Data Reporting – All but federally owned Texas hospitals are required to submit a quarterly hospital discharge report to the Texas Department of State Health Services. The Alliance regularly purchases this data for hospitals in Harris, Fort Bend and Montgomery County to analyze trends in the growth of charity care discharges.
The State of Health of Houston/Harris County - The Harris County Heathcare Alliance in collaboration with the Houston Department of Health and Human Services, the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County, the Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services, the Harris County Hospital District, and St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities, Inc. as well as numerous other community health professionals, produces a biennial report that provides a broad assessment of the health of our community. It is composed of summaries of more than forty health topics and includes current measures available to evaluate the health in our community, trends in key health measures, resources for priority setting in preventing disease, promoting health and improving access to care, health care information and websites for more detailed information, and summaries of key public health actions to address the identified issues.
