Building community health centers' capacity for enabling services data collection to improve quality and eliminate disparities

Background: Enabling services (ES) are non-clinical services such as interpretation, health education and outreach that support health care delivery and facilitate access to care. They are essential for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders (AA&NHOPIs) and other underserved populations who face substantial financial, cultural and linguistic barriers that prevent them from obtaining appropriate health care. However, health centers have had little guidance and practice in collecting data on the scope of their enabling services and the impact these services have on their patient populations. Purpose: ES data collection trainings provide health centers with the necessary skills and tools to implement a standardized protocol for collecting and analyzing enabling services. This ability to systematically track and evaluate ES is an important tool for health centers to advocate for sustainable funding, improve quality, and demonstrate the value of enabling services in improving access and outcomes for medically underserved populations. Methods: Trainings provide education and practice in the following areas for successful ES data collection and tracking: 1) Introduction to Enabling Services and its Importance to AANHPI communities; 2) Defining ES and ES encounters; 3) Planning for Implementation of ES data collection; 4) Training Staff for ES data collection; 5) Data Collection, Analysis and Dissemination. Results: ES trainings have been effective in increasing the capacity of 11 AANHOPIs and homeless serving health centers across the US to collect and analyze data on enabling services. These health centers were able to utilize the data to efficiently allocate resources, improve patient care and highlight the value of enabling services and staff. Conclusions: Enabling Services data collection trainings are successful in capacitating health centers to collect and utilize ES data to reduce barriers to care and facilitate access to quality care for underserved Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders and the homeless.