Programs
About ACU's Centers of Excellence Initiative
Uniting both the general concept of Centers of Excellence as well as the Health Resources and Services Administration’s specific Advancing Health Center Excellence Framework, the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved’s emerging Centers of Excellence (COE) program aims to identify and develop a framework of standards and create supportive resources to help health centers develop their capacity and excellence in critical areas to improve health equity as true Centers of Excellence.
ACU has been deliberate in researching best practices and has now compiled a series of fact sheets—featuring essential steps and a visualized self-assessment—and accompanying briefs through stakeholder and subject matter expert interviews and literature reviews on four crucial areas of health center services, including:
- Eye Health and Vision Care
- Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
- Suicide Prevention in Primary Care
- Workforce Retention and Recruitment
NEW! Health Center Excellence Fact Sheets: Essential Steps and Self-Assessments
Accompanying our more detailed briefs, these concise fact sheets provide essential recommendations on best practices in four different areas of health center services with a visualized self-assessment organizations can use to assess their progression toward excellence.
Health Center Excellence: Best Practice Briefs
These briefs provide essential guidance on best practices, resources to evaluate and improve your health center’s services, and recommendations from leaders and subject matters in the field.
Eye Health and Vision Care Services: Essential Steps for Health Centers
Developed through interviews with FQHC experts and relevant research, this brief explores essential practices and resources that health centers can use to guide their existing or emerging eye health and vision care services.
Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Essential Steps for Health Centers
This brief provides a list of essential practices in JEDI based on ACU’s “Building an Inclusive Organization” toolkit, research and assessments from the field, and interviews with health center leaders directly involved in JEDI initiatives.
Suicide Prevention in Primary Care & Supporting Healthcare Teams: Essential Steps for Health Centers
Based on interviews with national experts and resources from ACU’s Suicide Safer Care program, this brief outlines recommended best practices for suicide prevention in primary care, as well as organizational techniques to address suicide risk in clinicians.
Workforce Retention, Recruitment, and Resilience: Essential Steps for Health Centers
This brief provides a list of essential practices in JEDI based on ACU’s “Building an Inclusive Organization” toolkit, research and assessments from the field, and interviews with health center leaders directly involved in JEDI initiatives.
More Information
For questions or comments on ACU’s COE Initiative, please contact Rick Brown, Director of Communications, Membership, & Special Initiatives. This initiative is made possible with the generous support of the Centene Corporation.
