Blue Cross/Blue Shield Honors Access

Access Community Health Network recently announced that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois has awarded it four Blue Stars in vital areas that affect community members. ACCESS received the stars, based on its latest quality audits, for diabetes, asthma, childhood immunizations and mental health follow-up.

“By continuing to follow, adhere and excel at quality standards set by our industry, we are setting the pace for achieving quality in community health,” said ACCESS CEO Donna Thompson. ACCESS, which is the nation’s largest group of community health centers with 50 locations throughout the Chicagoland region, is committed to creating a “medical home” that offers seamless continuity of care for its patients.

“Providing the best quality of care for our families and patients is our top priority,” said Deputy Medical Officer Hugo Alvarez, M.D. “We are committed to not just meeting but exceeding any measurement of quality for health care organizations, and we hold ourselves to a high standard.”

As access to quality health care remains a grave concern for many, and the number of under- and uninsured increases, ACCESS anticipates a continued increase in its patient base, as well.

“When our families and patients recognize us as their medical home, and also recognize that we have earned industry-wide measures of quality, then we will have achieved our goals,” Dr. Alvarez added.

Access Community Health Net- work is comprised of 50 Joint Commission-accredited community health centers throughout Chicago and surrounding suburbs. It provides high quality, cost-effective, safe, comprehensive primary, specialty and preventive health care to more than 215,000 individual patients annually, one-third of whom are uninsured. Visit the Web site at accesscommunityhealth.net.

For more information about ACCESS health centers or other programs in your community, please call Elaine Hegwood Bowen, Media Relations Specialist, at 773.257.6599; email: bowen@accesscommunityhealth.net or call the toll-free number at 1.866.88.ACCESS.


Story posted: 3/10/2009

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