ACCREDITATION

ACCREDITATION AND FUNDING

West Oakland Health has achieved Joint Commission Accreditation for Ambulatory Health, Behavioral Health, and Opioid Treatment Program (OTP). The Joint Commission Accreditation is the gold standard for a primary care provider, setting the bar for the quality and safety of care provided within the healthcare organization. The Joint Commission’s accreditation process concentrates on operational systems critical to the safety and quality of patient care.

Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model is a way to improve health care in America by transforming how primary care is organized and delivered, adhering to a culture of safety and quality. As a PCMH certified organization, West Oakland Health follows the Five Attributes of PCMH listed below:

1. Comprehensive Care – The PCMH designated organization is accountable for meeting the large majority of each patient’s physical and mental health care needs, including prevention and wellness, acute care and chronic care provided by a team of care providers.
2. Patient – Centered – The PCMH designated organization provides care that is relationship-based and focused on the whole person. Partnering with patients and their families requires understanding and respecting each patient’s unique needs, culture, values, and preferences. Patients and families are core members of the care team that are fully informed partners in establishing care plans.
3. Coordinated Care – The PCMH organization coordinates care across all elements of the broader health care system, including specialty care, hospitals, home health care, and community services and supports. Such coordination is particularly critical during transitions between sites of care, such as when patients are being discharged from the hospital.
4. Accessible Services – The PCMH organization delivers accessible services with shorter waiting times for urgent needs, enhanced in-person hours, around-the-clock telephone or electronic access to member of the care team, and alternative methods of communication such as email and telephone care.
5. Quality and Safety – The PCMH organization demonstrates a commitment to quality and quality improvement by ongoing engagement in activities such as using evidence-based medicine and clinical decision-support tools to guide shared decision making with patients and families, engaging in performance measurement and improvement, measuring and responding to patient experiences and patient satisfaction, and practicing population health management. Sharing robust quality and safety data and improvement activities publicly is also an important marker of a system-level commitment to quality.

WOH is funded by the United States Public Health Service, the County of Alameda, the State of California, private foundations, public and private insurance (including Medi-Cal, the Alameda Alliance and Blue Cross managed care), and private patient fees.