Press Releases

CHCANYS Announces Initiative to Improve Preventative Cancer Care Using Azara’s Informatics Platform

Written by Azara Healthcare | Jul 11, 2012 7:49:00 PM

CHCANYS to Partner with State Health Department and Island Peer Review Organization on Cancer Prevention Registry for Federally Qualified Health Center

Federal Grant Award Makes Innovative Demonstration Project Possible

New York, NY — July 11, 2012 The Community Health Care Association of New York State (CHCANYS) announced today that it is partnering with the New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH) and the Island Peer Review Organization (IPRO), New York’s Quality Improvement Organization (QIO), to establish a cancer registry for federally-qualified health centers (FQHCs) to promote cancer screening among its adult patients and ensure appropriate follow-up care.

NYS DOH was awarded $1.7 million in year one of a five-year grant for this innovative demonstration project to advance evidence-based practices in cancer prevention within primary care facilities that serve populations with the lowest screening rates for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers. NYS DOH was one of only two health departments nationally who received an award. The grant comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Cancer Prevention and Control Programs for State, Territorial and Tribal Organizations and began on June 30, 2012.

The cancer prevention registry will be housed within the CHCANYS Center for Primary Care Informatics and thus will be known as the ‘NYS Cancer Prevention Registry of the CHCANYS Center for Primary Care Informatics.’

“We are thrilled to partner with the New York State Department of Health and with IPRO, and tremendously excited that the CDC understands how important a statewide database of primary care data will be in assessing population health and improving health outcomes in New York State,” said Elizabeth Swain, CHCANYS’ President and CEO. “With this funding support, we will be able to enroll nearly every federally qualified health center in New York State in the Center for Primary Care Informatics. While the CDC grant is focused on improvements in cancer screening and treatment, the CPCI offers a replicable model for improvement of care and outcomes across many clinical conditions, geographies, and provider types.”

The population served by FQHCs mirrors the population with the lowest screening rates for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers—people with low income, low educational attainment, who are uninsured or underinsured, and who have limited access to healthcare, as well as minorities or recent immigrants who are less likely to be screened than their peers.

The ‘NYS Cancer Prevention Registry of the CHCANYS Center for Primary Care Informatics’ will be used to automate provider assessment and feedback on screening and the monitoring of screening results, an intervention proven to increase population-level screening, ensure adherence to cancer screening guidelines and provide essential data to enable NYS DOH and community-based organizations to more accurately target practices and communities with low cancer screening rates for evidence-based screening interventions.

The software platform for the CHCANYS Center for Primary Care Informatics is provided in partnership with Arcadia Solutions and Azara Healthcare.

About CHCANYS
CHCANYS’ purpose is to ensure that all New Yorkers, including those who are medically underserved, have continuous access to high quality community-based health care services including a primary care home. To do this, CHCANYS serves as the voice of community health centers as leading providers of primary health care in New York State.

About Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs)
FQHCs are not-for-profit, patient-centered medical homes located in medically underserved areas that provide high quality, cost-effective primary health care to anyone seeking care, regardless of their ability to pay.