Nearly all quality care measures, visits decreased substantially at federally qualified health centers during COVID

Federally certified well being facilities (FQHCs) present complete preventive care, persistent illness administration, and psychological well being and substance use companies to greater than 30 million low-income and majority non-White sufferers who would in any other case seemingly lack entry to those vital companies.

Whereas FQHCs have performed a pivotal position in making certain equitable entry to COVID-19 remedies and vaccines, the populations served by FQHCs have additionally been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 instances, hospitalizations, and deaths, making continuity of high quality care much more important in the course of the pandemic.

However now, a brand new examine led by a College of Public Well being researcher has discovered that almost all FQHC quality-of-care efficiency measures, in addition to total go to volumes, plummeted in the course of the first yr of the pandemic, and these decreases endured into 2021.

Printed within the journal JAMA Well being Discussion board, the examine discovered that 10 of 12 FQHC quality-of-care efficiency measures declined considerably throughout this era, together with measures for cervical and colorectal most cancers screenings, weight evaluation and counseling, despair screening, tobacco use screening and cessation, and hypertension and glucose management, amongst others.

Equally, the vast majority of 41 totally different FQHC go to sorts declined throughout these first two years of COVID, together with visits for immunizations, oral examinations, and supervision of toddler or youngster well being.

Notably, whereas most FQHC go to sorts decreased in 2020 and 2021, affected person visits for substance use dysfunction, despair, nervousness, and sexually transmitted infections elevated after the pandemic started in 2020, and continued to extend in 2021.

The examine is the primary nationally complete evaluation of the efficiency of FQHCs in the course of the first two years of COVID.

“Our findings recommend that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted years of FQHC progress in bettering high quality measures and increasing affected person service volumes. Transferring ahead, FQHCs will want sustained federal funding to broaden FQHC service capability, staffing, and affected person outreach with the intention to compensate for missed care throughout COVID-19,” says examine corresponding creator Megan Cole, affiliate professor of well being regulation, coverage & administration.

“On the similar time, FQHCs have performed an essential position in assembly elevated want for behavioral well being companies seemingly exacerbated by the pandemic, and continued investments into FQHC behavioral well being workforce will likely be wanted to make sure these rising wants are met.”

For the examine, Cole and colleagues from the College of Washington College of Medication and the College of South Carolina Arnold College of Public Well being utilized nationwide healthcare knowledge from the Well being Sources and Providers Administration to look at quality-of-care measures and go to volumes amongst almost 27 million sufferers at FQHCs earlier than (2016 to 2019) and through (2020 to 2021) the primary two years of the pandemic.

By 2021, solely one of many 10 high quality measures that had declined in 2020 returned to 2019 ranges: dental sealants for kids. Tobacco screenings and BMI assessments continued to say no even additional in 2021. Nearly all of the 28 go to quantity measures that declined in 2020 remained under pre-pandemic charges in 2021.

Along with continued funding, the researchers additionally emphasize that high quality reporting and value-based care fashions should additionally adapt to the shorter- and longer-term impacts of the pandemic on high quality measures.

“That is notably essential for entities resembling accountable care organizations and managed care plans whose funds and operations are decided by high quality efficiency measures,” says Cole.

The journal additionally revealed an accompanying editorial, titled “Sustaining Key Providers in Federally Certified Well being Facilities In the course of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” by Ayanian and Miguel Marino.