Improving Access to Care
Adolescents who utilize SBHCs have increased rates of preventive visits and immunizations, improved chronic disease management outcomes, and more.
School-Based Health Centers (SBHCs) are an important access point to health care for adolescents. SBHCs reduce barriers to care, such as cost to the patient, access, missed work for parents/caregivers, and transportation. Adolescents who utilize SBHCs have been found to have increased rates of preventive visits and immunizations, improved chronic disease management outcomes for asthma, obesity, and mental health care, and decreased health care costs. Due to concerns about fragmented care for patients utilizing SBHCs, the American Academy of Pediatrics endorses the collaboration of community primary care providers with SBHCs.
Starter Guides are mini-toolkits that offer concrete, actionable steps to improve adolescent care.
Creating and maintaining positive relationships between your School-Based Health Center (SBHC) and school can be challenging. Learn more about improving School and SBHC relationships with this Starter Guide.
Developing or strengthening a partnership between a primary care provider (PCP) and a school-based health center (SBHC) can improve adolescents’ access to health services while decreasing fragmentation and redundancy, leading to better health outcomes.
Patient satisfaction surveys can offer insight into a patient’s experience accessing care at your health center. This Starter Guide covers why it is important to routinely collect feedback from young people to ensure your health center is providing patient-centered care to adolescents and how to do so effectively.
Integrating behavioral health services into a medical center’s structure provides an effective approach to caring for people with substance use disorders and mental health concerns. This Starter Guide introduces an integrated approach that can allow patients to receive behavioral health care with fewer barriers.
Communicating with youth and their caregivers about the value of confidential services helps to normalize the risk screening process and encourage adolescent autonomy. AHI has resources to help your health center communicate your confidentiality practices to adolescent patients and their parents/caregivers.
AHI partners with organizations to develop and facilitate engaging webinars on adolescent-centered care. Through the delivery of rich content and use of interactive features, we provide a meaningful, web-based educational experience.
The ACE-AP is a guided, comprehensive self-assessment and improvement process that drives health centers to become youth-friendly. Technical assistance is provided and includes customized implementation plans using Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) improvement cycles.
Interested in making your SBHC more youth-friendly or forging relationships with local PCPs? We help health centers across the country create customized workflows to best fit their needs and implement best practices in adolescent health care.
