Clinicians serving at IPHCA member CHCs are engaged with the Association through a variety of activities:
The Clinical Support Committee is comprised of senior-level clinical leaders of Organizational members.This Committee is responsible for recommending clinical performance outcomes, PCMH and recruitment and retention activities.
The CPSS providers opportunity to individual clinicians from health centers to network, exchange information and share best practices with their peers. The CPSS meets once a year at the IPHCA Annual Leadership Conference.
Medical Directors' Roundtable
The Medical Directors' Roundtable provides a forum to promote peer to peer communications among medical/clinical directors at member CHCs. The meetings take place four to five times per year and participants can attend at either the Chicago or Springfield office of IPHCA or via telephone.
Routine HIV Testing at Health Centers
IPHCA staff provided input on the development of the Illinois HIV Testing Toolkit, especially about section related to integration of HIV testing in a routine primary care visit in CHCs. This toolkit is now available at no cost to CHCs as a web-based resource. IPHCA staff has requested Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago and Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center experts to explore possibility of providing in-service training to interested health centers about this toolkit. IPHCA staff has also requested MATEC staff to prepare an article on this toolkit for publication in their monthly newsletter.
The IPHCA Behavioral Health Discussion Group offers periodic meetings to promote information sharing, learning, and networking among behavioral health clinicians and other interested staff at member CHCs.
Oral Health TIPS Project
IPHCA is one of the five PCAs funded through the DentaQuest Foundation to implement its Oral Health Enhancement through Training, Integration, Policy and SNS Consultation (TIPS).
The PCMH Interest Group meets bi-monthly via conference call to discuss and learn about topics related to practice transformation and medical home recognition. This group is targeted toward health center staff who are working on operations or quality improvement initiatives related to patient-centered medical home.
IPHCA staff offer assistance for: developing Quality Improvement plans, Peer Review protocols, PCMH recognition and practice transformation processes, UDS data collection & reporting, Illinois Health Connect data benchmarking, Joint Commission Accreditation, and other clinical quality improvement related activities. For additional information, contact Rajesh Parikh at rparikh@iphca.org.
Recruitment & Retention
IPHCA provides complimentary recruitment services resulting in the placement of qualified clinicians in health centers.
Student training and rotation opportunities are available to health professions students at community health centers in both urban and rural settings. While completing clinical rotations, students are exposed to multidisciplinary culturally diverse settings, public health issues impacting access to care, a unique patient population and clinic structure and exposure to future employment opportunities. Training sites utilize experienced, knowledgeable, and well trained preceptors. IPHCA staff can connect health professions students to health centers for rotation opportunities.
Health Source
Clinicians' Corner, a section of IPHCA's monthly newsletter, is dedicated to clinical matters. IPHCA staff and clinicians serving at member centers contribute timely articles for this section.