Grant Partners

The Talking Information Center (TIC) will develop a radio program to broadcast events focused on health and vocational training for individuals with disabilities. TIC provides free broadcasting of local news, articles, consumer information, and other items of interest to visually-impaired and otherwise disabled individuals across the state.

To replace three residential-style refrigerators in the Adult Day Center.

HSL has developed a depression services program, Making Real Progress in Emotional Health, to integrate behavioral health treatment with primary care and other health services to reduce the severity of depressive symptoms in seniors, and to improve overall health.  The Foundation's grant will enable HSL to expand services to patients receiving in-home care.  In 2015, HSL acquired Jewish Family and Children’s Services, which expanded HSL’s home care services by an additional 1,000 seniors (now totaling 2,000 older adults).  In contrast to seniors in supportive housing who tend to be part of a community, seniors in home care are more likely to suffer from isolation, pain, and increased debility post-hospitalization.  These stressors also increase these seniors’ susceptibility to depression.  HSL will take the lead in developing and monitoring individual care plans; tracking health outcomes in collaboration with primary care physicians from the practices treating the majority of patients; and developing additional community partnerships to ensure more comprehensive collaborative care for their patients.

The Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers (the League) will serve as a source of accurate and timely information related to health care coverage issues. The League will conduct policy analyses regarding state and federal issues and disseminates their learnings to policymakers, state agencies, member organizations, and other advocacy groups. Additional priorities will include increasing the League’s capacity for grassroots advocacy work and improving health literacy among patients at community health centers.

Massachusetts Public Health Association (MPHA) will focus on community health integration and improving the built environment. MPHA will work with the Alliance for Community Health Integration to ensure that social determinants of health are adequately addressed, in particular through community investments, support for ACOs from MassHealth, and health care institutions’ internal policies.

To purchase a pachymeter to screen and treat patients affected by glaucoma.

To secure a developer to redesign its website and implement a search engine optimization to increase the volume of site visitors. 

South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC) provides housing and supportive services to disadvantaged, homeless, single adults in three regions of the state:  MetroWest/Framingham, Central Mass/Worcester, and the Merrimack Valley/Lowell.  SMOC will evaluate the impact of its Housing First program that recognizes an immediate and primary focus on helping clients access and sustain permanent housing, to test the hypothesis that stable housing leads to improved health outcomes, and ultimately, a reduction in health costs.  Three hundred clients will be placed into housing and evaluated as part of this project.  SMOC will identify those clients with the highest service needs at entry into shelter, and then follow them into and throughout their housing placement in order to measure their health outcomes at various points along the continuum of homelessness and housing.

To hire a grant writer to help secure additional foundation and state government grant funds.

Dukes County will participate in community outreach events, and use paid and unpaid advertising and social media to promote affordable insurance information. They will develop a folder with handouts for appointments, and adapt a checklist for account set-up, enrollment and payment information, primary care provider selection, and making appointments. It will also set up reminder systems for clients with pending action steps. 

Project Director: Tricia McGinnis, MPP, MPH

“Best Practices and Lessons Learned from Partnerships between Health Care Providers and Community-based Organizations” is a one year grant that will support the development of an event featuring two health care provider and community-based organization (CBO) partnerships identified through a companion project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project. The partnerships highlighted will help inform how developing accountable care organizations in Massachusetts could establish similar partnerships to support the integration and coordination of social determinants of health with health care services. The featured health care provider/CBO partnerships will highlight lessons learned and explore the different types of activities and approaches to establish viable partnerships and drive improved patient outcomes. In addition, the grantee team will develop an issue brief that synthesizes best practices and lessons learned, highlighting actionable takeaways and operational activities for health care providers. The brief will also incorporate insights gleaned from engaging Massachusetts stakeholders during the event.

To hire a consultant designer to redesign marketing materials.

Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), in partnership with the Mel King Institute, will train community developers and offer technical assistance to help them partner with local hospitals to address the social determinants of health at the community level.  Content of the trainings include hospital Community Benefit programs, the Determination of Need program, reforms to health care under Medicaid and requirements for Accountable Care Organization models, and successful examples of partnerships between the hospital and housing communities.  This program seeks to build partnerships with community developers, as hospitals are addressing the needs identified in their own Community Health Needs Assessment processes. 

To hire a strategic planning consultant.

To purchase a new exam table for its Medical Clinic.