Green & Healthy Homes Initiative Selects Five Healthcare Organizations for Pay for Success Projects
Program will assess promising asthma-related PFS projects benefiting low-income children in Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Utah and Tennessee
Green & Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI), a grantee of the Social Innovation Fund’s Pay for Success program, and its collaboration partner Calvert Foundation, announced the selection of five service recipients to receive support to explore promising Pay for Success (PFS) projects benefitting low-income, asthmatic children.
These funds will provide capacity building assistance to advance and evaluate new models of funding home-based interventions that produce measurable outcomes such as, reducing asthma-related hospitalizations, emergency department visits and missed school days. This program will be based on the asthma-focused PFS project that is being explored in Baltimore, MD by a partnership among GHHI, Calvert Foundation and Johns Hopkins Hospital and Healthcare System.
“We are incredibly grateful for the Corporation for National and Community Service’s support and the opportunity to explore PFS projects with these exceptional healthcare organizations,” said Ruth Ann Norton, GHHI President & CEO. “Research shows that 40 percent of asthma episodes are caused by home-based environmental health hazards. Much of this cost is born by medical and federal tax payer dollars, yet these programs provide little to no resources to eradicate the root causes of asthma. PFS presents an ideal opportunity for transformational impact. Through PFS we can also establish necessary evidence to move public policy and garner public support to help reduce the high cost associated with repeated hospitalization and emergency department visits due to asthma. GHHI is working to improve the health of housing so children and families are healthier and have a greater opportunity to thrive.”
In 2014, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative received $1.011M from the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), to help strengthen the pipeline of healthcare entities and service providers prepared to implement Pay for Success projects across the country. The SIF combines public and private resources to grow the impact of innovative, community-based solutions that have compelling evidence of improving the lives of people in low-income communities throughout the United States. Through its Classic and Pay for Success programs, the SIF focuses on overcoming challenges in three areas of priority need: economic opportunity, healthy futures and youth development.
“The SIF’s Pay for Success grantees held highly competitive, open competitions to select communities in need of services and here we’re seeing the results of those competitions,” said Lois Nembhard, Acting Director of the Social Innovation Fund. “We couldn’t be more enthusiastic for the first Pay for Success sub-recipients and service recipients, all charged with the important mission to measurably improve the lives of people most in need.”
In a typical PFS model, the private, public and nonprofit sectors come together to provide up-front funding to finance a particular service delivery. If the services provided achieve agreed-upon outcomes, the payor repays the investors. If the outcomes are not achieved, the payor does not pay, allowing the public sector to receive the highest return on taxpayer investments. GHHI and Calvert Foundation conducted a nationwide, open competition for healthcare organizations to serve as the private payor in the PFS model.
The following service recipient organizations were selected:
- Baystate Health: Springfield, MA
For more than 130 years, Baystate Health, a not-for-profit health care provider, has been a keystone of the western Massachusetts community. It has a breadth of assets—strong and extensive physician relationships through Baycare Health Partners (BHP), a physician hospital organization and accountable care organization that represents more than 1,400 physicians including Baystate’s physicians and non-affiliated independent community physicians; Health New England, a managed care organization and subsidiary of Baystate; Pioneer Valley Accountable Care a subsidiary of BHP; and four independently-led Neighborhood Community Health Centers (one of which is a pediatric practice) totaling 144,000 visits per year.
- Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital: Memphis, TN
As the children’s hospital serving the Mid-South region of Tennessee, Le Bonheur has a 25-year history of providing community prevention services to ensure the health of children and avoid unnecessary medical costs. Le Bonheur Community Health and Well-Being, the community-based programs nonprofit branch of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, is the coordinating entity and administrator for the PFS project. Additional partners include Le Bonheur’s CHAMP (Changing High-Risk Asthma in Memphis through Partnership) and Memphis CHiLD, a newly established medical legal partnership. Realizing the connection between substandard housing and the health of children, in 2013 Le Bonheur helped convene and co-found a multi-agency coalition called the Healthy Homes Partnership.
- Monroe Plan for Medical Care: Buffalo, NY
Monroe Plan for Medical Care is a not-for-profit entity founded in Rochester, NY, as a risk-bearing Independent Practice Association (IPA) meeting the healthcare needs of low-income individuals for more than 40 years. Monroe Plan currently manages the health care of more than 200,000 enrollees of Medicaid managed care plans in upstate New York and is one of the members (owners) of Univera Community Health, a Prepaid Health Services Plan providing Medicaid managed care and Child Health Plus in the Buffalo region. With a long history of initiatives to improve asthma care for its members while aligning financial incentives for stakeholders, Monroe Plan would like to extend its work to a PFS project in the Buffalo area, with the possibility of expanding this project to the Rochester area in the future.
- Spectrum Health: Grand Rapids, MI
Spectrum Health is a west Michigan integrated delivery system composed of an 1150 physician multispecialty medical group (Spectrum Health Medical Group), 11 hospitals, including Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, a community services organization (Healthier Communities) as well as other healthcare services. The insurance division of Spectrum Health, Priority Health, serves nearly 600,000 members including over 100,000 Medicaid beneficiaries. Since 1996, Priority Health has collaborated with physicians and hospital organizations for on pay for outcomes initiative for reducing ED visits and hospitalizations.
- University of Utah Health Plans: Salt Lake City, UT
University of Utah Health Plans (UUHP) was formed as a strategic initiative of the University of Utah Medical Group and University of Utah Health Care. Since 1998, UUHP has grown to serve more than 140,000 members, with more than 100 staff members in the Salt Lake City area. UUHP administers fully at-risk Medicaid and commercial products and is strategically aligned with academia and government programs to effectively manage cost and quality of health care and meet all regulatory requirements. UUHP is focused on population management. UUHP identifies member risk levels and provides the most appropriate intervention, from supporting healthy lifestyle decisions to advanced care management, for patients with complex conditions.
GHHI and Calvert have released a second RFP for service providers in these locations, available here. One service provider from each location will be selected, for a total of 10 service recipients. Those selected will collaborate with the chosen healthcare organization with technical assistance from GHHI and Calvert to advance the proposed projects.
About Green & Healthy Homes Initiative
The Green & Healthy Homes Initiative® (GHHI®) is a national nonprofit dedicated to breaking the link between unhealthy housing and unhealthy families. Formerly known as the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, GHHI replaces stand-alone housing intervention programs with an integrated, whole-house approach that produces sustainable green, healthy and safe homes. As a result, we are improving health, economic and social outcomes for families across the country. With support from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of Energy (DOE), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Council on Foundations and numerous philanthropic partners, GHHI serves as the national model for green and healthy homes interventions and is currently working in Austin, Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Dubuque, Flint, Jackson, Lansing, Lewiston Auburn, Marin County, New Haven, Philadelphia, Providence, Salt Lake and San Antonio. Learn more at ghhi.org or follow us @HealthyHousing.
GHHI is a recipient of the Corporation for National and Community Service’s Social Innovation Fund (SIF). As part of the SIF’s new Pay for Success initiative, GHHI is helping strengthen the pipeline of state and local governments and service providers prepared to implement Pay for Success projects across the country. By tying funding for community-based solutions to tangible social outcomes, Pay for Success has the potential to change the way government serves the public. Learn more at nationalservice.gov/sif.
About the Corporation for National and Community Service
The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Social Innovation Fund, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, and leads the President’s national call to service initiative, United We Serve. For more information, visit NationalService.gov.