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Julia’s Center Earned NAFC 2024 Gold Standard Award
Julia’s Center for Healthcare Earned a 2024 Gold Rating from the NAFC Quality Standards Program
Plano, Texas – Julia’s Center for Healthcare earned a 2024 Gold Rating from the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics (NAFC) Quality Standards Program. By self-attesting that the organization has certain policies and procedures in place, it is able to highlight its commitment to providing quality care to patients.
The National Association of Free and Charitable Clinic’s mission is building healthy communities for all through quality, equitable, accessible healthcare. The NAFC and its members are dedicated to ensuring that patients receive access to quality healthcare. To quantify and qualify the care provided at the Free and Charitable Clinic network, the NAFC formalized a set of Quality Standards for member organizations.
“Thanks for your diligent efforts to allow us to achieve this award.” – Jim Fini, President
NAFC Members voluntarily submit information to the NAFC on the various policies and procedures in place to attain their standards rating and attest/pledge that they successfully incorporate these standards within their organization.
NAFC Quality Standards elements include policies and procedures related to the following areas: Administrative, Clinic/Pharmacy Responsibilities, Credentialing and Privileging Systems, Patient Care, and Risk Management Systems.
For more information on the NAFC, please visit www.nafcclinics.org. For more information on Julia’s Center for Healthcare, please visit juliascenter.org
Julia’s Center for Healthcare 8th Anniversary Event and Open House
Save the date! Julia’s Center for Healthcare will be celebrating our 8th anniversary. We invite you to an open house at the clinic February 25th,
2024, from 2pm-5pm.
All volunteers, donors, family members, and the community are invited. You are invited to tour the clinic, meet volunteers, and help us
celebrate our anniversary. Light refreshment will be offered. Hope to see you there.
For questions or directions to the clinic please call 972-535-5099, Tuesday or Thursdays.
Fourth Quarter Newsletter
Our Staff:
We are blessed to welcome Dr. Sudhir Amaram; MD. Dr. Amaram is a board-certified Cardiologist. He will be seeing patients who need cardiac care monthly.
We are also thrilled to have Christopher Garduno work 3 days a week to assist with administrative duties at our front desk. Chris is a long-time volunteer who is bi-lingual and can assist our English and Spanish speaking patients.
We have volunteers of all ages. We wish to thank Abbie Siefert from American Heritage Girls completed her Stars and Stripes Award (the highest award in AHG) by improving Julia’s Center for Healthcare facilities. American Heritage Girls is a Christian leadership and service organization for school age children from first grade to seniors. The Diabetic Education Room was updated, the kitchen and the front storage area were reorganized, and the clinic was cleaned. During the project Abbie supervised the girls to complete the project in one weekend, and they went beyond the original scope of the project due to their enthusiasm and teamwork. They completely updated the Diabetic Education Room by painting the room, installing a cabinet to hold the diabetic supplies, installing wall cabinets to store PPE supplies, and installing brochure holders on the wall for diabetic information for the patients to take home. In addition, the volunteers reorganized the kitchen to utilize the storage space more efficiently, and they labelled the cabinets. In the front storage room, new shelves were installed that increased the storage area available. Due to the reorganization, we were able to donate excess storage furniture to Hope Restored Missions. They are a charity next door to Julia’s Center for Healthcare that helps the indigent and the homeless with their social needs. Abbie and her volunteers did a fantastic job helping us become more organized, and we are extremely grateful she chose us for her project. They are a blessing to us, and the selfless donation of their time and actions will allow our volunteers to bless our patients. (more…)
A Message from Our Past President, Barb Devitt
It has been a privilege and an honor the have served as president of Julia’s Center for the past three plus years and to have worked with you, previous board members, volunteers, and of course, our patients.
These past three years while president have been years of unpreceded times of the world with the waxing and waning of the pandemic to the continuance of variable strains of the SARS virus. But we managed. We managed to take care of our patients during the pandemic by calling every patient who was scheduled for that week to inquire how they were doing, to refill medications, and to distribute insulin.
Most importantly, it was a time for advancing and strengthening the internal processes of the clinic to move Julia’s Center forward. In 2020, we were still doing paper charting, but on September 10th we had ATHENA in place and initiated incorporating the electronic health record. This has been a very successful and efficient change.
The introduction of technology for appointments and appointment reminders enhanced communication with the patients via calls and texting. This was made possible by the front desk personnel Rogelio, and Chris who worked as intermediates. They report that our patients “are very thankful for the service and flexibility on our behalf which facilitates their time and work schedule”. Moreover, with the addition of and ingenuity of the UT Dallas and University of Noth Texas students/volunteers, the clinic also expanded its social media presence. We already had a website in place, then added Facebook and Instagram. We went from paper scheduling of volunteers to online scheduling, as well as implementing a QR code to record volunteer hours.
The clinic’s volunteer base increased with medical assistants and scribes. A formalized volunteer orientation was established, and a Nurse Team was formed where issues were discussed and policies and procedures were developed. Additionally, grants were obtained that bolstered not only our financial base but our services to our patients for medications, labs, and teaching aids such as food and diabetic foot models.
The boldest undertaking was the FTCA/TORT. The application for the FTCA/TORT was debated, defeated, but initiated in 2021 out of the necessity to keep and attract providers. In October 2022, the initial application was filed, and the clinic was initially deemed in May 2023. In October 2023, the re-deeming application for 2024 was filed, and in November, the FTCA/TORT was awarded to Julia’s Center for 2024.
These past three years crystallized the clinic’s internal processes for advancement. The clinic is in a sound position to develop further by building on these accomplishments. In times, when there were doubts, GOD always winked at us and we prevailed.
I am thankful for all your time, efforts, talents, and tenacity in strengthening Julia’s Center for Healthcare. With that, we move forward, and I wish the incoming board and advisory board every success and many blessings.
All the best,
Barbara Devitt
Mobile Health Mammogram – October 12th
