About Us

Eighteen emerging leaders in health care access have been named to the seventh class of the Massachusetts Institute for Community Health Leadership (MICHL). MICHL is a leadership development program designed to help high potential professionals to increase their personal impact and enhance their health organization’s influence in the community and the health care system. The 18-day educational program takes place over the course of nine months, offering a highly experiential curriculum that includes classroom work, peer-to-peer exchanges and collaborative learning. During the program, students develop and implement a project that addresses a health care issue impacting low-income and vulnerable people in Massachusetts.

MICHL engages participants in:

• Exploring the leadership challenges facing health care organizations in Massachusetts;
• Identifying and building the capacities and competencies leaders will need to meet the challenges; and
• Fostering collaboration among private nonprofits, public agencies and academic institutions.

Past graduates include Lynn Bethel, Director, Office of Oral Health, Massachusetts Department of Public Health; Laura Sullivan, MD, Medical Director, Cambridge Health Alliance; Derek S. Brindisi, Director of Public Health for the City of Worcester Department of Health and Human Services; and Dr. Gary Chu, VP of Community Collaboration at New England Eye.

The 2012-2013 class includes:

• Rebecca Balder, Health Safety Net Director, Division of Health Care Finance & Policy
• Melinda Burri, Director of Operations, Windsor Street Health Center
• Paulette Renault-Caragianes, Director, City of Somerville Health Department
• Marta Chadwick, Director, Violence Intervention & Prevention Program, Brigham & Women’s Hospital
• Kevin Coughlin, Executive Director, Greater Lowell Health Alliance
• Holle Garvey, Nurse Practitioner, Sisters of Providence Health System
• Katherine Howitt, Senior Policy Analyst, Community Catalyst
• Jacqueline M. Johnson, Chief Operations Officer, Caring Health Center
• Stacey King, Director, Community Health & Wellness Program, Cambridge Public Health Department
• Joanna Kreil, Quality Initiatives Manager, Mass. League of Community Health Centers
• Nancy Mahan, Senior Vice President, Program Services, Bay Cove Human Services, Inc.
• Matthew McCall, Senior Consultant, The Home for Little Wanderers
• Anne McHugh, Director Chronic Disease Prevention & Control, Boston Public Health Commission
• Lenore Tsikitas, Health Access & Promotion Coordinator, Mass. Department of Public Health
• Rossana Valencia, Clinical Policy Analyst II, UMass Medical School
• Jennifer Valenzuela, National Director of Program, Health Leads
• Alyssa Vangeli, Policy Analyst, Health Care for All
• Cathy Wirth, Project Manager, Healthy Kids, Healthy Future

The mission of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation is to expand access to health care. It focuses on collaborating with public and private stakeholders to develop measurable and sustainable solutions that benefit uninsured, vulnerable, and low-income individuals and families in the Commonwealth. The Foundation was formed in 2001 with an endowment from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. It operates separately from the company and is governed by its own Board of Directors.

A study by a leading health care economist concludes that if health care costs in Massachusetts grow more slowly than projected, workers could pocket as much as an extra $9,200 in take-home pay between 2011 and 2019. Over the same period, Massachusetts employers could save up to $34.5 billion in premium payments and preserve an additional $4.1 billion to invest in jobs and profits — all of which would otherwise be lost to rising health care costs.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation has appointed Celeste Reid Lee to the position of Senior Director of Grantmaking. She will oversee all of the Foundation’s grants programs, including a new category of funding that supports innovative approaches to making health care more affordable. In 2011, the Foundation awarded grants totaling nearly $3.3 million to 72 community organizations across Massachusetts.

Five years after the enactment of Massachusetts health reform, gains in residents’ access to needed health care have been sustained and first-time reductions in emergency room visits suggest improvements in the effectiveness of health care delivery in the state. These are among the findings from the latest Massachusetts Health Reform Survey, which has tracked the impact of reform since fall 2006. The survey, commissioned by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, is the basis for Health Reform in Massachusetts as of Fall 2010, a report written by researchers from the Urban Institute and the University of Minnesota. Also released today as a Web First was a related article published by the journal Health Affairs, which will also appear in the journal’s February issue.