Grant Partners

Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition’s Health Access Campaign advocates for health care coverage for all immigrants. MIRA supports bills to lift caps for the Children’s Medical Security Plan, reduce out-of-pocket costs, and reinsert affordability protections for the lowest-income residents ineligible for MassHealth. MIRA will also convene a Task Force on Immigrant Healthcare Professionals to examine barriers to relicensing faced by thousands of foreign-trained health care professionals.

To complete the coding component of the directory search function of the endwithcare.org website.

To support an awareness campaign for statewide pediatricians on the availability of the Parental Stress Line.

East Boston Neighborhood Health Center will target uninsured patients prior to their next scheduled appointment and provide enrollment assistance.  To address churn, it will utilize its electronic medical record to identify individuals whose coverage is about to lapse, and refer them to follow-up assistance. It will develop a health insurance education module that includes low-literacy multilingual materials and a workshop curriculum that helps patients navigate the system.  Ten health insurance literacy information sessions will be held each year. 

The National Alliance on Mental Illness Massachusetts (NAMI Mass) will strive for access to services for all who need them and end the stigma around mental illness.  Their strategies include educating families and individuals to understand their illnesses and advocating for needed services. NAMI will strengthen their policy focus on the following issues: a lack of uniform access to health-related benefits; lack of recognition of cost-effective treatment modalities by MassHealth; and inequitable treatment of disability coverage for mental illness.

To hire a grantwriter consultant.

Community Health Programs (CHP) will target outreach in nearby towns with over 100 uninsured residents, and attend community events to connect with the underserved, using its mobile van to reach those in geographically isolated locations. It will reduce churn by proactively communicating via phone and email that insurance is about to lapse, and provide instructions for seeking assistance. CHP will also create a Facebook page to explain common insurance terms, and post and translate sample letters from MassHealth.

To purchase and implement a photo ID system for volunteers.

Vinfen has developed Community-Based Health Homes (CBHH) for individuals with serious mental illness to integrate their primary care and behavioral health and address the disparities experienced by the population.  The CBHH model achieves close collaboration approaching an integrated practice by embedding Nurse Practitioners (NPs), Nurses (RNs) and Health Outreach Workers (HOWs) into existing community-based rehabilitation and recovery behavioral health teams, bringing primary care services directly to individuals with serious mental illness in their communities since 2012.  Over the past three years, Vinfen has been actively evaluating and piloting health technologies in an effort to integrate behavioral and primary health care for its population.  The Foundation-supported expansion program embeds two HOWs and the use of a smartphone app specifically designed to support the population into a dispersed, community-based outreach team.  A dedicated Program Coordinator will manage the program, collect data and evaluate impact.

To purchase a laptop computer and cart accessories for physician use. 

 To replace nine computers in the Computer Lab at the Boston Living Center.

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 purchase and install client management software program.

To purchase six computer systems.

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.