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Improving performance for patients starts with a positive experience when they enter the health centers. Each waiting room and health center is clean, brightly lit, and welcoming. A bank of computers and new practice management software help reduce waiting time, and time spent during an appointment. Health centers are staffed with bilingual employees to facilitate communication, and a medical assistant escorts the patient through the medical process. CCI maintains a high standard of care for the duration of every patient’s appointment. With accreditation and best practices in place agency-wide, good care is planned, delivered, and expected. Message from the Executive Director
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Message from the Chair This year, Community Clinic marks a milestone in quality performance—not just another year in business. For 32 years, the CCI community of six service-delivery locations and the professional staff to serve its ever-growing number of patients has operated in good times and tough times. All these years, we have watched health care for the indigent take a back seat to other issues of the day: transportation, environment, criminal justice. But the need for quality care for our under- and uninsured neighbors was ever-present and growing more visible. Indeed, in the past decade Montgomery and nearby counties have experienced the greatest influx of immigrants to Maryland. Health disparities have surfaced among divergent populations and require attention. And with the changing employment demographics, more people are piecing part-time jobs together to make a living and more companies are dropping health coverage as costs escalate. CCI has positioned itself during this long history to be aware and anticipatory of events that affect patient base and patient services. Today, we know the Takoma/Langley neighborhood is home to many Latino families in need of our services. CCI has applied for federal funding for the first time, and work is underway to expand the CCI health center located there to accommodate the increased need for services. Upcounty in Gaithersburg, where another large concentration of people who need CCI live and work, CCI welcomes new and established patients consistent with the “continuity of care” mission. Looking ahead further, plans include offering mental health care, dental care, and women’s health initiatives in collaboration with local hospitals, agencies and providers. Improving performance is the heart of the CCI mission, and the guiding principle for our work here. During our history, CCI has been proactive in its ability to be accessible and responsive to needs as we see them; many times we’ve been able to act before they affect us. That same proactive position has been the core for our daily operations. It is also the impetus behind this year’s major effort to earn national accreditation from the premier accrediting body, the Joint Commission for Health Care Organizations (JCAHO). CCI was awarded accreditation in December, and is fully accredited until 2006. National accreditation firmly embedded improved performance, and all the policies, processes, and procedures inherent in doing excellent work, in every phase of service at CCI, by every employee and volunteer. CCI embraces this better way of doing things, and at the same time continues the momentum to aim higher. JCAHO is a start, a standard to maintain. But as chair, and with the Board of Directors and staff all on the same page, we’ll move forward to improve performance beyond our current level—it’s what our patients need, and the standard to which we will respond. Community Clinic is here to provide health care
services to those who need them, easily accessed, understood, and
easy to return to for continuity of care. Children, adults, and
families who come to us are all welcome and can expect quality care—ever-increasing
quality of care. Economic status is not a barrier to care here;
everyone is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve at
the most basic level we all share. |
