Vinfen, Community Partners Receive Center For Medicare Medicaid Innovation Grant to Improve Care
July 23rd, 2012
Vinfen Corporation, in partnership with Bay Cove Human Services, North Suffolk Mental Health, Brookline Mental Health, and Commonwealth Care Alliance, has received a $2.9 million award from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.The grant will fund programs to integrate the health care and behavioral health care for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) in metropolitan Boston by embedding nurse-practitioners and primary care physicians with their existing psychiatric rehabilitation care teams. By combining psychiatric rehabilitation care with high-quality primary care, the program will create community based health homes and improve individuals’ health by increasing access to health services, reducing the impact of their disorders, and reducing overutilization of acute services.
Dr. Bruce Bird, CEO of Vinfen, commented “Although we have been doing a good job helping people recover from mental illness, our system’s capacity to coordinate medical care and teach people how to manage their own health has not been adequate. This program will provide better care at a lower cost for a population that is at risk for severe chronic disease, and is often in need of critical care.”
As part of the program, care management counselors and peer counselors will use a unique training program developed by Dr. Steve Bartels at Dartmouth to help individuals to self-manage their medical and behavioral health issues. Telehealth technology will enable health care teams to monitor patients, prioritize care, and intervene as necessary.
Over a three-year period, the program will train an estimated 57 workers, and will create an estimated 11 jobs for health outreach workers, nurse practitioners, a primary care physician, and a project manager. The project is forecast to produce net savings by the third year of 2.5% and greater sustainable savings in the future.
Dr. Robert Master, CEO of Commonwealth Care Alliance, noted, “We are excited about this opportunity to create an entirely new approach to integrated primary care and mental health services for a population that has been so poorly served in our fragmented, impersonal medical care system.”
“I applaud Vinfen and their community partners for leading the way on this innovative program to integrate and improve care for individuals with serious mental illnesses,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. JudyAnn Bigby. “This initiative is very important to enhancing the efforts we are leading under Governor Patrick to improve care for people with chronic illness.”
For more information, contact Sophie Jones, Director of Business Development at 617-441-1755 or joness@vinfen.org.
For a PDF Version of the press release: (Click here)