Center For Healthcare Research & Transformation

Washtenaw health initiative chrt role: chrt served as the backbone organization and fiduciary agent for whi, a voluntary collaboration dedicated to improving the health and health equity of low-income, uninsured, and under-insured populations in washtenaw county. In 2024, the initiative received contributions from michigan medicine, trinity health system, the city of ann arbor, and washtenaw county. Key activities in 2024: the whi continued to support workgroups focused on a community advisory board, a healthy aging collaborative, mi community care, and communications. The whi successfully kicked off its health and social services integration work with a community care hub (cch) panel discussion hosted on december 10th. During the december cch discussion, representatives from cchs in new york, missouri, and maine provided whi stakeholders with an overview of how their hubs were planned, implemented, and scaled.lessons learned from the december cch discussion were summarized into 12 recommendations.

Long term support service (ltss) chrt role: chrt continued to support the michigan department of health and human services (mdhhs) long term support service (ltss) project by providing targeted policy and project management support for the mi health link program and related american rescue plan act (arpa) initiatives. These arpa activities occurred during the period spanning 20222024. Key activities in 2024: the work included support for the mi health link program, specifically relating to the development of a dual eligible special needs plan (d-snp) implementation strategy and gathering stakeholder input for the mi health link transition to a hide-snp. Chrt provided support to the arpa team at mdhhs, which included conducting analyses related to key areas of interest, collecting stakeholder feedback to inform arpa programs, and providing ongoing project management support. Chrt delivered a comprehensive report to the mi health link team identifying opportunities to standardize personal care assessments and personal care planning for members. This involved interviewing leaders from medicaid health plans and state ltss programs, reviewing tools, and drafting findings.

All other programs: in addition to the three largest programs (promotion of health equity, washtenaw health initiative, and long-term services and supports), chrt staff worked on more than 30 additional projects for over a dozen clients, generating 1,776,048 in revenue from these activities. These diverse projects included core chrt services such as an evaluation of certified community behavioral health clinics (ccbhcs), which are designed to provide mental health and substance use services regardless of a person's ability to pay, the long-standing policy fellowship program, and implementing a bipartisan approach to health policy legislator education. The remaining portfolio covered specialized policy analysis, data analytics, and evaluation across various subject areas. Specific projects involved compiling recommendations from the substance use disorder recovery community to maximize the impact of michigan's opioid settlement investments and analyzing the state of the science on how oral health impacts chronic conditions. Furthermore, chrt collected feedback from free clinics across the nation regarding innovative ways to prevent infectious disease spread and supported annual survey research, including the michigan physician survey and the cover michigan survey. The final evaluation report was completed for the three-year leadd pilot (law enforcement assisted diversion and deflection) in washtenaw county, which assessed its impact on diverting low-level offenders. The list of our projects goes on, as does the impact of our work. Chrt's 2024 findings have been shared broadly through publications, reports, and presentations. This work has inspired and informed evidence-based policy and practice changes that will improve the health of people and communities. That's what's so gratifying about the work we do together, which seeks to reduce health disparities, improve the health of communities, and extend both the length and quality of life.