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How Your Donation Makes a Difference
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$50
Fill one uninsured patient's tooth
$100
Give one uninsured family nutrition class
$250
Give one uninsured woman mammogram screening
$500
Give one uninsured patient proper medication for one year under our 340B Pharmacy program
$1,000
Take care of one uninsured patient for medical visits at the health center for one year
Please click on "Donate" under "Quick Links" to make a donation to
South Cove.
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Dear South Cove Staff, Patients, Supporters and Friends:
I would like to take a moment and wish everyone a happy and healthy new year 2016! And at South Cove, we celebrate twice because on February 8th, it is the new year of the Fire Monkey, we all will celebrate again!
Remember it is winter, be sure to get a flu shot (if you have not already) and check on your elderly friends and neighbors, and stay warm!
Sincerely, CEO/Executive Director
South Cove Community Health Center |
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A dream turned into a vision and now a reality at last!
South Cove Location Undergoing Major and Exciting Changes
Year 2016 sees South Cove setting an eagerly anticipated milestone. New Year is traditionally a time for new goals and resolutions, but in South Cove's case, we are excited to finally unveil the finished product of an on-going project spanning several years. Ever since the inception of the 145 South Street building, it has been a long term goal of the management to eventually turn it into a full-fledged clinic from the original Family & Life Center. The idea of relocating the Ob/Gyn department, and to build a Women's Health Clinic around it slowly conceptualized and took shape over the years. Finally, work began in the fall of 2014 to reshuffle the different departments to make room for Ob/Gyn. As we turned the page for 2016, we are thrilled to announce that a Women's Health Clinic will become a reality right after the Chinese New Year! In addition to a completely up-to-date Ob/Gyn department, there will be Family Planning, Mammography Screening, Bone Density Screening on the first floor, and WIC/Nutrition and Early Intervention in the garden level. They are joined by Dental, Behavioral Health and Optometry departments, which complete the make-up of the newly expanded 145 South Street center. South Cove has always prided itself in providing comprehensive medical and preventative care to its patients, calling it a "one-stop shop." We hope that the new Women's Health Clinic will deliver the same benefit and convenience of a one-stop shop to our female patients.
While the construction of the Women's Health Clinic is taking place, there is another project going on simultaneously: building a Call Center on the 4th floor. The Call Center will centralize all incoming calls and handle all non-electronic medical information that arrives by either fax or mail. One group will be assigned to schedule & confirm appointments, and make referrals on our patients' behalf. They will also be responsible for delivering an important quality measure that we refer to as "closing the loop", by proactively following up on all patients who failed to keep their appointments at the health center and/or did not show up for referrals at the hospitals. Meanwhile, another group will be responsible for inputting, scanning and uploading medical information that was on paper into the electronic medical record system to ensure accessibility by the providers in a timely manner. The new Call Center will essentially combine the functions of Member Services and Medical Records departments into one centralized location. This phase of the construction should be completed by April. Once all the construction is said and done, we hope to rededicate the building and of course the new Women's Health Clinic.
We are very excited about all the different changes that are happening at the 145 South Street location. We will soon be using over 25,000 square feet of space at 145 South Street for the South Cove operation, and combining our other three locations, we will have 70,000 square feet of clinical and admin space to serve over 31,000 non-English speaking Asian patients. We are building for the future and we are building room for expansion. At the same time, we are continuing to look for new medical and admin staff to be trained to serve for the future.
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A New Year, a New Home for South Cove's Electronic Health Records
BIDCO to Manage South Cove's EHR
Starting after Chinese New Year, South Cove will be moving its Electronic Health Records system to the Cloud. In a joint venture with Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization (BIDCO), who will help manage the system, and Arcadia Solutions, who will host the environment. The solution will strengthen the integrity and availability of the EHR for providers. In addition, the solution will also provide virtually unlimited scalability and have enhanced disaster recovery abilities.
The entire process is expected to take 4 days to complete over the Chinese New Year Holiday Weekend. During the upgrade, clinics will have access to a "Read Only" system and be using paper encounters and progress notes until the new system is ready. The health center is scheduling lightly during those days so there is less catch up to do afterwards.
Once this major undertaking is completed and everything settled, we will finally be able to add the dental electronic medical records in April through June of 2016. The long journey of going electronic and doing away with paper started almost 8 years ago in July 2008, it is with a sense of excitement and relief knowing that once this last hurdle is cleared, the ship will finally dock.
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Level III Medical Home Recognition Renewed
South Cove Earns National Recognition from NCQA
South Cove first applied for and successfully received the distinction of a Level III Patient-Centered Medical Home with NCQA (National Committee for Quality Assurance) in December 2012 for the 885 Washington Street clinic. We subsequently applied for the same recognition for the 435 Hancock Street and 88 Holmes Street clinics in 2013. The recognition is not permanent though; every 3 years an organization needs to reapply and provide documentation to show that the practice has been continuously improving to meet the core and any new or updated standards.
The Medical Home model as defined by NCQA is "a model of primary care that combines teamwork and information technology to improve care, improve patients' experience of care and reduce costs. Medical homes foster ongoing partnerships between patients and their personal clinicians, instead of approaching care as the sum of episodic office visits. Each patient's care is overseen by clinician-led care teams that coordinate treatment across the health care system." Brook Hailu, Quality Improvement Project Leader who has championed the health center's effort in obtaining and most recently, renewing this recognition, sums it up best in one sentence: a medical home is about taking care of all the medical needs of a patient providing one continuum of care.
To be a recognized Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH), the practice needs to meet the core standards that focus on 6 different areas: patient-centered access; team-based care; population health management; care management and support; care coordination and care transitions; and performance measurement and quality improvement.
The renewal process, although more simplified in terms of paperwork than a first-time application, still took 45 days where a considerable amount of documents, reports, copies of policies and procedures and screen shots of the medical record system were submitted as part of the survey. After weeks of hard work and email communications, we are happy to share that as of December 2015, the 885 Washington Street has renewed its Level III PCMH recognition with NCQA.
"NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home Recognition raises the bar in defining high-quality care by emphasizing access, health information technology and coordinated care focused on patients," said NCQA President Margaret E. O'Kane. "Recognition shows that South Cove Community Health Center has the tools, systems and resources to provide its patients with the right care, at the right time."
South Cove is proud of the successful renewal and is ready to go through the same process with 435 Hancock Street and 88 Holmes Street as their renewals come up in 2016.
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South Cove Annual Christmas Party
A Great Time for the South Cove Family
South Cove held its annual Christmas Party on Saturday, December 19, 2015 at the China Pearl Restaurant in Quincy. It was very well attended with close to 500 staff members, board members and their families.
Guests were treated to a traditional Chinese banquet style 10-course dinner featuring dishes that satisfied even the most sophisticated palates. The highlight of the party was of course Santa Claus and his bag of gifts. Over 100 gifts were given out to children from 0 to 16 years of age. Aside from the feasting and gifting, it was also a time for people to mingle, socialize and catch up with one another. It provided a rare opportunity for staff from different sites to be under one roof as well as for staff and board members to meet and connect.
The party was a huge success and we owe our thanks to Margaret Cheung and her Quincy staff whose hard work and meticulous planning ensured a joyous and memorable night for all that attended.
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| Eugene Welch, Nelson Liu, Board President, and Santa (a.k.a Eric Tiberi) pose with the South Cove Board of Directors
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2016 is the Year of the Monkey!
Celebrations in the Plan
 2016 is Year 4714 in the Chinese calendar and the year of the Fire Monkey. In addition to the zodiac sign that runs on a 12-year cycle, each year is also represented by an element according to the Chinese Five Elements (metal, water, wood, fire and earth) Theory.
Monkeys are clever, sharp, energetic and entertaining. During the Spring Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC), the official title of marquis was pronounced 'hou' (侯), the same pronunciation as monkey in Chinese, thereby giving the animal an auspicious aura. Superstitions aside, monkey is traditionally held to a higher regard and more favorable than its predecessor the Sheep (or Goat) as a sign to born under, therefore, it would not be surprising to see a spike in birth rates in 2016 - a trend that the Ob/Gyn department would be delighted to see happen!
Chinese New Year falls on Monday, February 8, 2016 this year. South Cove will be planning and participating in several events and celebrations; we invite all our patients, staff and friends to celebrate the Year of the Fire Monkey!
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About Us
About South Cove Community Health Center:
Founded in 1972, South Cove is dedicated to improving the health and well being of all medically underserved in Massachusetts with a special focus on Asian Americans. This mission is accomplished by providing high quality, community-based health care and health promotion programs which are accessible, linguistically and culturally competent for these populations.
Services:
Adult Medicine (成人科) Bone Density (骨質篩檢) Ob/Gyn (婦科) Mammography (X光乳房攝影篩檢) Pediatrics (兒科) Podiatry (足科) Neurology (神經科) Dentistry (牙科) Optometry (眼科) Member Services (會員服務) Nutrition/WIC (營養科/奶卷) Family Planning (家庭計劃) 340B Pharmacy (藥房) Early Intervention (幼兒培育組) Behavioral Health (行為健康科) Brighton/Allston After-School Enrichment Program (課餘活動中心)
Clinic Locations:
885 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111
Tel: 617-482-7555
145 South Street, Boston, MA 02111
Tel: 617-521-6730
435 Hancock Street, Quincy, MA 02171
Tel: 617-318-3300
88 Holmes Street, Quincy, MA 02171
Tel: 617-318-3200
Brighton/Allston After-School Enrichment Program:
640 Washington Street, Brighton, MA 02135
Tel: 617-787-1087
Website:
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