The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable. To achieve this mission, HRSA provides leadership and financial support to health care providers in every state and U.S. territory. HRSA grantees provide health care to uninsured people, people living with HIV/AIDS, and pregnant women, mothers and children. They train health professionals and improve systems of care in rural communities.
HRSA oversees organ, tissue and bone marrow donation. It supports programs that prepare against bioterrorism, compensate individuals harmed by vaccination, and maintains databases that protect against health care malpractice and health care waste, fraud and abuse.
The HRSA Health Disparities Collaboratives (HDC) were developed to transform primary health care practices in order to improve the health care provided to everyone and to eliminate health disparities. In 1998, HRSA funded one Primary Care Association/Clinical Network team in each of five regional clusters, in addition to National Clinical Networks focused on oral health, migrant farm worker health care, and homeless health care to work together to develop the infrastructure support for the HDC.
HRSA worked with these organizations
and the the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to develop the evidence-based systems of improvement within the HRSA Health Disparities Collaboratives. During the fall of 1998, HRSA selected eighty-eight health centers to participate in the HRSA Health Disparities Collaborative, which focused on diabetes. Since that time, other Collaborative areas of focus have included asthma, depression, cardiovascular disease, cancer screening/planned care, finance/redesign, prevention, diabetes prevention, perinatal/patient safety, and oral health. Approximately 800 health centers are participating in the HRSA Health Disparities Collaboratives as of September 2006. This includes a number of health centers that have participated in HDC-equivalent collaborative activities sponsored by Primary Care Associations, foundations, and county and State health departments.
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State-based partners include state Primary Care Associations, Clinical
Networks, agencies within states’ Departments of Public Health
and state legislators. At the local level, partners are pharmacies
and pharmaceutical companies, schools, churches, YMCAs, and local
officials such as mayors and supervisors.
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