Our Grantees
New York State Health Foundation grantees reflect the geographic, economic, social, cultural, and ethnic diversity of the Empire State. From a community center in the Bronx addressing teen obesity to a free clinic for the uninsured in rural upstate Tompkins County and a mobile dental clinic for children on Long Island, NYSHealth grantees—all in their own, individual ways—are working to improve the state of New York’s health.
Patients with repetitive hospitalizations frequently suffer from comorbid conditions including psychiatric illness, substance use issues, and multiple chronic illnesses. In the Bronx, these patients also face challenges related to poverty, illiteracy, housing instability, and abusive relationships. These high-need patients account for almost 80% of Medicaid spending. The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Health Center (MLK), together with the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, plans to implement an Intensive Wellness Program, which will shift high-cost inpatient services into comprehensive primary care to lower costs and improve health outcomes.
New York State requires that a care plan be written at least four times a year for every nursing home resident. While these plans are important documents intended to manage individual nursing home residents’ health, existing care plan processes are inefficient, lengthy, and repetitive. This grant to the Foundation for Long Term Care will support development of a new, more efficient care planning process.
Hospital readmissions are costly to the health care system and too often traumatizing to patients and their families—a sign of ineffective and fractured health care service delivery. The readmission rate for hospitals in the Glens Falls metropolitan area is 18.5%—a full 6% higher than the statewide average. A planning grant to Hudson Headwaters will help them and their partner organizations, Glens Falls Hospital, and Warren and Washington County Home Health Service Agencies, to assess the problem and develop an intervention that addresses the problem.
New York State’s Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and Family Health Plus programs experience a substantial amount of enrollee “churning,” with at least one-third of eligible enrollees failing to complete the renewal process each year and losing State coverage. Lake Research Partners, Inc. will identify why former beneficiaries did not renew.
The New York Academy of Medicine will evaluate a project being conducted by the New York Immigration Coalition with New York State Health Foundation funding—Strengthening the Capacity of Immigrant Organizations to Link Uninsured Immigrants to Health Care and Insurance.
Lack of insurance coverage is one of the most significant determinants of disparities in health care outcomes among African American and Latino populations. Under this grant, the Community Service Society will develop a health reform proposal that reduces racial and ethnic disparities in health care access and outcomes for New Yorkers enrolled in public insurance programs, with a particular focus on managed care enrollees.
As the first field partner—or “node”—of the New York State Diabetes Campaign, this grant will work toward improving the delivery of care to patients with diabetes at community health centers (CHCs) across New York State.
The Institute for Family Health is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality and availability of family practice services to medically underserved populations. The Institute will work with the leadership of NYSHealth to establish and lead the New York State Diabetes Campaign. The Campaign will focus on reversing the diabetes epidemic in
DEFY DIABETES! is specifically targeted to low-income individuals with diabetes, or who are at risk of getting diabetes, in six low-income communities. The initiative has two major goals: improving primary care and increasing community resources to reinforce the adoption of prevention and management activities.
The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services will focus on providing readjustment counseling and links to mental health services to veterans and their families in the Bronx, in partnership with the Bronx VA Medical Center.
Through its Veterans Reintegration Assistance Program, the Rochester Veterans Outreach Center will provide outreach and reintegration case management for veterans and their families in the Finger Lakes region, and will create a cross-sector team to improve coordination of reintegration services throughout Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, and surrounding areas.
Primary care services in New York and across the country are reaching a crisis point as fewer doctors are practicing these general services and rising medical costs are making primary care centers untenable. In order for New York State to reform and improve its health care system, it is imperative that the issues facing the primary care system be better understood and addressed. Primary Care Development Corporation (PCDC) specializes in assisting primary care centers and turning them into economically viable organizations. PCDC plans to conduct a rigorous survey of the State’s health centers to obtain a clearer understanding of the needs and impacts affecting their financial stability.
Access to health care services is difficult for low-income, medically under-served communities. Many children and their families do not have a “medical home” to ensure access to primary care and preventive services. Child health clinics have an important role in local accessibility to services; however, the number of clinics has significantly dwindled over the last 30 years. On November 8, 2007, the Commission on the Public’s Health System launched a campaign that began a year-long celebration of the city’s child health clinics’ 100th anniversary by forming five active borough-wide coalitions.
His Branches, Inc., is a nonsectarian Christian ministry that seeks to bring hope, healing, and restoration to individuals, families, and entire neighborhoods.
