Health Care Homes Certification

Optional Step

A variance is a specified alternative or an exemption from compliance to a requirement granted by the commissioner. Variances can be approved for the following:

• When small parts of a requirement are not fully implemented. In these instances, the clinic generally meets the requirements or has a well-developed plan and implementation timeline on specific elements.
• When the clinic fails to use benchmarks to demonstrate accountability for their performance and engage in process improvement strategies to impact the patient population it serves (as per the HCH benchmarking requirement).
• When the clinic experiences a hardship. A hardship is considered something greater than an inconvenience, or the process may result in costs to the clinic to implement or the process is difficult to implement.
• When the clinic is implementing an innovative or experimental approach that meets the intent of the requirement or is actively participating in a health care home research project that contributes to innovation and improvement of care.

The HCH Certification process will identify which requirements are fully met, fully met with a recommendation(s), partially met with a variance(s) and recommendation(s), partially met with a variance(s), and not met. Applicants who do not fully meet any of the requirements will work with their assigned PIS/IS to utilize the variance process.

Please see the Variance section of the HCH COMPASS (PDF) for further information.

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