Collaborations and Partnerships

CHCFC has been working collaboratively with this local farm since 2016 to connect patients to healthy food. For two years our two organizations worked together on a research project around diet quality and access to farm shares. Poor diet quality is a leading cause of excess morbidity and mortality—responsible for more deaths than any other risk factor, and over 10% of all disability-adjusted life years in the US. Improving diet quality is a public health priority and a key goal of chronic disease prevention efforts. Further, the US population exhibits notable disparities in diet quality such that groups with lower socioeconomic status tend to have worse diet quality and bear a disproportionate burden of diet-related disease. Despite progress in improving overall diet quality in the last decades, socioeconomic disparities in diet quality have increased. The study sought to determine whether a subsidized CSA share could improve diet quality in individuals at high-risk of diet-related illness. The results of the study were favorable and ever since CHCFC has maintained its relationship with Just Roots, offering flash-frozen sample portions of farm fruits and vegetables to interested patients along with information on how to access discounts on farm shares as well as use SNAP benefits to purchase.

CHCFC has collaborated with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office since 2014. Community Health Caseworkers have provided support for sentenced individuals to assist them with navigating the complexities of health care and insurance. In the most recent two years we have expanded this collaboration under a project that enabled an embedded Community Health Worker (CHW) in the facility working daily with clients to navigate registering for services and applying for health care coverage. The CHW is also available to offer continuity of care for patients’ opioid treatment medical needs such as naltrexone (Vivitrol) and buprenorphine/naloxone (Suboxone), and to help assure a seamless transition of services to CHCFC post-release if clients chose to continue treatment.

The Baystate Franklin Medical Center is a critical community partner for hospital services, however we have also worked together on a unique and ground-breaking project to increase access to emergency dental services and working towards diverting dental emergencies from the hospitals’ emergency room where the costs to provide care are much higher, and the outcomes ineffective at preventing future dental pain and suffering. This project has been about getting the right care, from the right people, in the right place, and to reduce prescriptions for antibiotics and pain relievers. In collaboration with hospital emergency department staff, CHCFC Oral Health Care providers work to ensure that all persons who walk through hospital doors have the opportunity to receive diagnosis, stabilization and definitive treatment of urgent oral health needs as well as comprehensive disease management and preventative intervention for oral health. This site promotes a pathway to comprehensive oral care through eliminating barriers and increasing access to meet a significant population health crisis. In the three years since its inception, the site has been recognized as a best practice at the national level and the subject of a white paper published by the University of Massachusetts.

Another valued behavioral health partner, BHN and CHCFC are about to embark on a co-location within CHCFC’s newest facility in Orange, MA, opening in fall/early winter 2021. Overseen by Dr. Ruth Potee, BHN Medical Director for Addiction Services, and in collaboration with CHCFC, BHN will annually provide 150 persons living in the North Quabbin Area (Athol/Orange and surrounding communities) of Massachusetts with integrated primary care behavioral health services and immediate access to Methadone in an Outpatient Treatment Program (OTP) in a community that does not currently offer Methadone treatment within 25 miles. Local access to Methadone is a critical need given the significant increase in illicit Fentanyl infiltrating the heroin and cocaine being sold illegally on the streets of Massachusetts. This gap in services creates a severe burden for high-risk, high-need persons who experience significant inequity in conditions impacting employment and educational opportunities, transportation, access to health services, support systems, and low-income status. Strong evidence supports the efficacy of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) in treating persons with opioid use disorders, and particularly Methadone for persons exposed to Fentanyl.

“Better Together” is the motto we embrace in the Greenfield Center for Wellness, the building that is home to our two organizations. CHD has been a long term partner for behavioral health services, however the renovation of 102 Main Street and new co-location in 2018 brought our collaboration around primary care, oral health, and behavioral health to new and improved levels. Over the last three years we have worked to solidify our model of coordinated care and services, shared care plans, and routine huddles and case consults between providers of each organization to ensure that patients get the most reinforcement and support possible for their health care goals.