Dear CIN Colleagues,

The new CIN is here and it’s thrilling to share the new team of partners with you! As you know from following this newsletter, last year CIN embarked on a redesign to drastically shift how we promote better health for Californians. This change recognizes that health care will not be able to achieve improved equity, quality, affordability, and patient experience without addressing barriers like food insecurity and housing instability.

For more patients to receive this level of coordinated and integrated care, stronger partnerships will be needed between community-based organizations (CBOs) – trusted experts at meeting patients’ non-medical needs – and health care organizations. Now, CIN welcomes CBOs as full and equal partners, resulting in a more diverse and dynamic network. See the complete list of partners.

And be sure to read the full story of CIN’s changes from Kathryn Phillips, associate director at the California Health Care Foundation, who has guided CIN’s evolution.

Please help us spread the word about the new CIN to your colleagues who would benefit from being part of this growing community as we expand our focus – and subsequently expand the resources and support we will be providing to a wider audience. Participation in CIN continues to be free and open to all!

CIN Webinar — New Perspectives on Executive Transitions 

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 12:00 – 1:00 PM Pacific (online only)

When key personnel begin thinking about transitioning out of organizations, organizations can begin planning strategically about their next chapter. If thoughtfully managed, a change in leadership can be a positive milestone and offer an opportunity for organizational growth.

During this CIN webinar, Ralph Silber, former chief executive officer of the Alameda Health Consortium and CIN partner Community Health Center Network, will discuss how to successfully approach the three phases of executive transitions: preparation; search and selection for the new executive; and onboarding and ongoing support. This webinar is intended for executive leadership and board members at health and human service organizations that want to plan for future leadership transitions.

Employer Toolkit: Work Design for Health

To serve the health of Californians generally, our organizations must prevent and address burnout and promote wellness among our own employees. But conventional wellness programs often don’t address the root causes of worker stress, which can cause mental and physical illnesses.

A new toolkit, developed in partnership by Harvard and MIT, offers evidence-based resources for redesigning workplace practices and relationships to support employee health and wellness around three core principles: give staff more control over their work; tame excessive work demands; and improve social support at work.

In January 2023, new social care quality measures will launch from many federal and some state agencies that target payer and delivery system reporting entities. They include requirements around social risk screening and, in some cases, social care interventions.

State Health and Value Strategies (SHVS) and the Social Interventions Research & Evaluation Network (SIREN) at UCSF are co-hosting this discussion of the new social care quality measures, including key measure design decisions, readiness factors, and reporting requirements. This webinar is for Medicaid and other insurance program, health care providers, and social services agencies.

How is the US really doing on health care? Knowing the current trends is key to our work, and this annual report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the essential guide. 

The 2022 NHQDR highlights important advances in health care, such as declines in mortality from HIV/AIDS and breast cancer. It also identifies troubling trends, including a national decline in life expectancy — a trend most notable among racial and ethnic minorities — as well as shortages of health care workers and a high number of rural hospital closures. This year’s NHQDR also provides a deep analysis on four priorities for the Biden-Harris administration: maternal health, child and adolescent mental health, substance abuse disorders, and oral health.

As stress and mental health concerns have grown over the past few years, the shortage of behavioral health workers has been exacerbated. To ensure that Californians receive the treatment they need, we need strategies to bolster supply and evolve how care is provided.

Healthforce Center at UCSF, which manages CIN, will host a one-hour webinar on the challenges of addressing this shortage and strategies that include expanding the use of peer support specialists, community mental health workers, social work assistants, and other paraprofessionals.

For people who struggle with low-wage jobs, poverty, and homelessness, accessing conventional methods of health care is extremely challenging. But newer care models can reach unhoused residents, including families with children, who live in cars and encampments.

See an inspiring short film from the Center for Care Innovations and Kaiser Permanente about a program in Maui that brings telehealth to patients through a mobile outreach team. Hear the clinic and mobile team members talk candidly about the obstacles to their work and the initial problems getting buy-in for this alternative program.

The Centers for Disease Control has requested proposals for the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) grant opportunity. This five-year program is meant to improve health, prevent chronic diseases, and reduce health disparities among racial and ethnic populations with the highest risk, or burden, of chronic disease. Funding will support recipients that:

CIN encourages organizations to use A Toolkit to Advance Racial Health Equity in Primary Care Improvement to collect data on specific populations the CDC grant is focused on (see opportunity 2), then design efforts (see opportunity 5), and then conduct evaluation (opportunities 6 and 7) through the grant proposal process.