The COVID-19 Pandemic has disporportionally affected populations which are traditionally cared for at federally-qualified health centers (FQHCs) including:
- the uninsured
- individuals with chronic disease
- people who people working in essential jobs such as environmental services, foodservice, grocery and retail, and caregiving roles
- people who are or have been in institutional settings, such as incarceration, hospitals, nursing homes, daycare
- minorities and tribal populations
- people with insecure housing or transportation
- people who live in crowded households or shared living space
As such, FQHCs are shouldering a heavy burden of the pandemic and providing critical public health services to address the pandemic to
What are the components of our approach with NACHC-CDC?
1) Human-Centered Design: We ask our partners to bring in real patient stories (personas and use cases) to help us understand:
- The patient and care team story – and how to communicate this at the national level
- What data we may be missing by limiting ourselves to what is already being recorded
- The kinds of limitations that may affect patients and FQHCs in responding to the pandemic
2) Gathering data that will tell us how FQHCs are responding to and being impacted by the pandemic including:
- Extent of testing and test positivity
- Rate of infection and outcomes of COVID-19 diagnoses
- Impact of SDOH on infection and risk
- Changes to services due to the pandemic
- Immunization rates and patterns for influenza that may help us with SARS-CoV-2 vaccination
3)