Eight EHE-Supported Health Centers Earn National Quality Leader Badges for HIV Prevention and Care
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The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recently announced recipients of the 2023 Community Health Quality Recognition (CHQR) badges. The CHQR badge program recognizes outstanding health center performance in a variety of clinical areas, including behavioral health, maternal health, cancer screening, and HIV prevention and care, as well as overall quality performance.
This year, nine health centers are honored with a National Quality Leader (NQL) badge in HIV prevention and care, including eight HRSA-funded health centers and one health center look-alike. These health centers earned the recognition for their work in 2022 on HIV testing, PrEP utilization, and linkage to care.
All eight of the HRSA-funded health centers honored with the HIV Prevention and Care NQL badge began receiving Primary Care HIV Prevention (PCHP) funding from HRSA’s Bureau of Primary Health Care in 2020 as part of the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) initiative. As of August 2023, 411 health centers in the 57 EHE jurisdictions are receiving PCHP funding to expand access to HIV testing, PrEP, and linkage to HIV care services.
Among all HRSA-funded health centers, in 2022, almost 85,000 health center patients received PrEP management services. HRSA-funded health centers served nearly 200,000 patients living with HIV and provided nearly 3.5 million HIV tests in 2022, an increase of nearly 30% since 2019.
The 2023 National Quality Leaders in HIV Prevention and Care are:
| Health Center Name | State |
|---|---|
| East Boston Neighborhood Health Center | MA |
| Hudson River Health Care, Inc. | NY |
| Sunset Park Health Council, Inc. | NY |
| Community Clinic, Inc. | MD |
| Care Resource Community Health Centers, Inc. | FL |
| Whitman-Walker Clinic, Inc. | DC |
| Desert AIDS Project Inc. | CA |
| Howard Brown Health Center | IL |
LaSante Health Center (NY), a health center look-alike, also earned the HIV quality leader badge.
“Health centers are critical for preventing and treating HIV in areas where need is the greatest,” said Jim Macrae, HRSA’s Associate Administrator for the Bureau of Primary Health Care. “We are thrilled that eight health centers who received EHE Primary Care HIV Prevention funding were awarded the HIV Prevention and Care Quality Leader badge as a way to honor their successful efforts to expand access to HIV services.”
Clinical Quality Badge Criteria
To earn the HIV Prevention and Care NQL badge, the health centers had to meet three criteria:
- Linkage to HIV care: 95% of clients linked to care within 30 days of diagnosis (and at least 30 patients linked to care)
- PrEP: An absolute increase in the number of patients receiving PrEP between consecutive reporting years
- HIV testing: At least a 10% relative increase in the number of HIV diagnostic tests performed between consecutive reporting years
Information on 2023 CHQR badge recipients by national, state, or individual health center levels is available on this page.
About Health Centers
Today, approximately 1,400 HRSA-supported health centers operate nearly 15,000 service sites. In 2022, health centers provided care for more than 30 million patients, 90 percent of whom had incomes below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. A 2022 survey of 4,000 health center patients nationwide found 97% would recommend their health center to family and friends.