Turner House Clinic, Inc. dba Vibrant Health

Vibrant Health's strategic priorities are to improve access to quality primary medical, behavioral health, dental and enabling services in the community, regardless of socio-economic barriers, and to improve health outcomes through a patient-centered medical home practice model in conformance with requirements of a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC).

Vibrant Health's greatest strengths are its capacity to evolve the organization and transform the delivery of care to best meet the needs of the vulnerable populations served; improve health outcomes by adopting evidence based models of care, such as the Patient-Centered Medical Home practice model; and recruit and retain key staff and Board leadership with the vision, compassion, expertise and stamina required to purse the mission and achieve strategic goals. Among Wyandotte County safety net clinics, only Vibrant Health provides integrated primary medical, dental and behavioral health services in 55.5 clinic hours each week, including weekday evenings and Saturday mornings; is governed by a highly engaged, consumer-majority Board; and convenes an Advisory Community Board to ensure input from and responsiveness to residents and civic leaders.

The Board of Directors establishes access, financial and quality key indicators to assess progress in achieving goals. These measures and goals are reviewed in a dashboard format compared to actual results for the month and year-to-date at Board meetings, as well as in Board Executive Committee, Finance Committee and Quality Committee meetings and other Committees as appropriate.  Findings are analyzed to identify opportunities for continuous quality improvement, using the Plan-Do-Check- Act(PDCA) model.

Turner House Clinic, Inc. received FQHC-LAL designation effective January 1, 2018, concurrent with the merger of KU Health Partner’s Silver City Health Center and UKHS’ Pediatrics Clinic at Children’s Campus Kansas City into Turner House operations and the rebranding of the merged organization as Vibrant Health. As a result of the FQHC-LAL designation, Vibrant Health is reimbursed at the higher FQHC rates of reimbursement for patients insured by Medicaid or Medicare, helping to improve revenue and financial sustainability. For 2018, the number of unique patients increased by 54% and total patient visits increased by 43% as compared to Turner House’s 2017 performance. Specifically, medical visits increased by 41%, dental visits by 21% and behavioral health visits by 237%. The dramatic patient volume growth in 2018 is attributable to a significant increase in personnel. As a merged organization, Vibrant Health went from approximately 30 to 50 employees. New clinical staff included nurse practitioners, behavioral health specialists, a family practice physician, and a dental hygienist. Also, the growth in patient visits was made possible by Vibrant Health's training of care teams to leverage patient workflow and EHR system efficiencies, enabling all providers to practice at the top of their licenses. Vibrant Health is an active member of the Health Access Planning Committee formed to pursue the priority strategies identified in the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) for Wyandotte County. At the request of the Public Health Department, Vibrant Health is serving as the lead agency to implement the Health Access portion of the CHIP, in collaboration with other stakeholders. To support our goals, Vibrant Health will pursue marketing to new and existing patients; collaborating with community partners; engaging more volunteers and donors in our mission; integrating trauma-informed care practices in our patient and employee policies and interactions; managing growth to ensure long-term sustainability; and designation as a full, grant-funded FQHC.