Community Care Cooperative (C3), the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) that advances community-based care for MassHealth members through its network of 19 health centers throughout the state, today announced that it has been named a $1,026,000 grant recipient by the McGovern Foundation to rapidly expand telehealth capacity in community health centers statewide in the next two weeks in order to better fight the COVID-19 epidemic.
“We are grateful for the McGovern Foundation’s trust in C3 and look forward to applying this grant to the extremely urgent work of expanding and enhancing our telehealth capabilities to meet this crisis,” said Christina Severin, President and CEO of C3. “This grant makes it possible for community health centers throughout Massachusetts to better serve the commonwealth’s needs in the face of this pandemic by helping our most vulnerable and underserved residents.”
C3 will immediately expand telehealth activity to primarily serve community health center Medicaid patients through virtual consultations. This grant allows for $400,000 in enabling hardware and software, several hundred hours of IT support, and the creation of short- and longer-term strategies for telehealth. The grant also helps sustain health centers through increased patient and provider participation in telehealth and the resulting revenue during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.
To help meet the coronavirus emergency, C3 will extend the telehealth benefits made possible through this grant to all Federally Qualified Health Centers in the Commonwealth and is partnering with the Massachusetts League of Health Centers.
“As a family physician who worked in Massachusetts Community Health Centers for close to 20 years, I recognize how essential these centers are to serving the most vulnerable across the Commonwealth,” said McGovern Trustee Dr. Liz McGovern. “The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation is honored to be partnering with C3 and the Mass League of Community Health Centers to help minimize the disruption in care through rapid deployment of telehealth services.”
The move will also benefit health care providers, allowing doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurses to work from home for part of the week, reducing their potential exposure to coronavirus while allowing patients sheltering in place to receive diagnostic and clinical care.
“While we are doing telehealth out of necessity, patients are also telling us that they really like this option, especially when they don’t feel well and don’t have to come in if it’s not necessary,” said Dr. Julita Mir, C3’s Chief Medical Officer and a practicing clinician at DotHouse Health. “It also helps keep health care workers safe at this difficult time and in the longer-term and should reduce burnout and improve retention in primary care.”
The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation is dedicated to improving lives globally with information technology, neuroscience and AI. The Foundation is the legacy of IDG founder Patrick J. McGovern, who believed in the potential for technology to democratize information, improve the human condition and advance social good. For more information, visit Mcgovern.org
Community Care Cooperative (C3) is a 501(c)(3) Accountable Care Organization (ACO) that leverages the proven best practices of ACOs throughout the country and is the only ACO in Massachusetts founded and governed by Federally Qualified Health Centers and exclusively focused on advancing integrated and coordinated community-based care for MassHealth members. C3 is building its organization on the collective strengths of 19 partner health centers across the state, and continued growth enables C3 to better serve MassHealth members across the Commonwealth. To view a list of C3 health centers, click here.
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