Escambia Community Clinics, Inc. (ECC) has received recognition by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) as a Level 2 Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) for both ECC’s main clinic at 14 W. Jordan Street in Pensacola, as well as for its other eight satellite medical sites throughout Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties. The patient-centered medical home model is a way of organizing primary care that emphasizes care coordination and communication to transform primary care into “patient friendly” medical care. Medical homes can lead to higher quality care and lower costs, and improve patients’ and providers’ experience of care, encouraging patients to become more active participants in their health care.

“We are very proud of this Level 2 recognition by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Our staff and medical providers have worked diligently over the past two years to achieve the high standards set forth in the PCMH model. Stronger doctor/patient engagement, better access to the appointments, proactive intervention, and careful management of chronic conditions are some of the cornerstones of PCMH that we have embraced during this quality improvement process “according to Chandra Smiley, Executive Director.

NCQA has helped to build consensus around important health care quality issues by working with large employers, policymakers, doctors, patients and health plans to decide what’s important, how to measure it, and how to promote improvement. NCQA makes this process possible in health care by developing quality standards and performance measures for a broad range of health care entities. These measures and standards are the tools that organizations and individuals can use to identify opportunities for improvement.

Since 1992, the mission of Escambia Community Clinics (ECC) has been to provide comprehensive primary and preventive health care to the citizens of Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties and surrounding areas, with a special focus on access to care for the under-insured, uninsured, working poor and medically needy. Designated as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in 2007, ECC has expanded access to health care for the most vulnerable citizens in our community, and now provides a wide range of primary care and supportive services for both children and adults at nine locations in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties. During 2015, ECC provided over 98,000 patient encounters to over 32,500 individuals.