BMC to participate in multi-site demonstration to promote health care models for people with complex needs

The Center for the Urban Child and Healthy Family at Boston Medical Center has been chosen to participate in Advancing Integrated Models - AIM, a multi-site demonstration promoting innovative, person-centered strategies to improve care for adults and children with complex health and social needs.

Made possible with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), AIM will assist health system and provider organizations in designing and piloting new approaches to integrate care for people with complex needs with a focus on improving health outcomes and fostering health equity.

We are delighted to have the opportunity to participate in this important initiative and learn from others across the country who are similarly committed to creating innovative health care models for patients and families facing adversity

Our participation will be important as we launch our Pediatric Practice of the Future, dedicated to ensuring that all children are healthy and ready to learn by the age of five, in January 2020."

Megan Bair-Merritt, MD, MSCE

Bair-Merritt is an executive director of the Center for the Urban Child and Healthy Family at Boston Medical Center.

This multi-site demonstration will accelerate opportunities to align best practice approaches in care delivery for children and adults with complex health and/or social needs, including: (1) complex care management; (2) trauma-informed care; (3) physical and behavioral health integration; and (4) mechanisms to address health-related social needs. While many organizations have implemented one or more of these strategies, few have adopted all and even fewer have effectively aligned these efforts internally or externally with community partners.

"There is enormous energy across the complex care field to implement various strategies to improve health and social service delivery for people with complex needs; however, these strategies are typically siloed in isolated programs," said Allison Hamblin, MSPH, president and chief executive officer at CHCS. "Advancing Integrated Models seeks to promote greater integration of these approaches and create sustainable partnerships and financing pathways to support this work."

The Center for the Urban Child and Health Family was competitively selected to participate in the initiative, along with seven additional programs. Each pilot site offers clearly defined opportunities to build on existing pioneering care models and meaningfully involve consumers in improving care delivery. Sites will collaborate with Medicaid partners to identify supportive payment models for their planned approach.

Additional programs are: Bread for the City, Washington D.C.; Denver Health, Denver, CO; Hill Country Health and Wellness Center, Round Mountain and Redding, CA; Johns Hopkins HealthCare, Baltimore, MD; Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY; OneCare Vermont, Vermont; and Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services, Philadelphia, PA.

"These innovators in the field are truly at the cutting edge of person-centered care for adults and children with complex needs," said Susan Mende, MPH, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "AIM is providing an exciting opportunity to build on their efforts and support a vision for meaningful health system transformation to improve health outcomes."

Over two years, each site will receive tailored technical assistance and access to national subject matter experts and participate in a peer learning collaborative to accelerate solutions across sites. Throughout the initiative, CHCS will identity and share lessons and tools from the sites' experiences to help stakeholders across the nation increase the effectiveness of integrated care models.