Since November 2018, dozens of representatives from Washtenaw-area organizations that are deeply involved in the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders (SUD) have been participating in an SUD system transformation process hosted by the Washtenaw Health Initiative. The goal? To improve the county’s SUD prevention and treatment system by identifying system barriers and weaknesses […]
On June 19, 2019, we sat down with Peter Jacobson, a founding member of the Washtenaw Health Initiative Steering Committee. Jacobson, who recently retired from the WHI and Washtenaw County Health Department governing bodies to move closer to family in Washington, DC, shares his commitment to public health, his history with the WHI, and his […]
Founding WHI Steering Committee members Peter D. Jacobson, director of U-M’s Center for Law, Ethics, and Health, and Ellen Rabinowitz, health officer for the Washtenaw County Health Department and executive director of the Washtenaw Health Plan, will retire this summer after eight years of service. This month, we featured Ellen and Peter in our “Voices […]
A new sponsored project–the Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Learning Community (OHCA)–has been approved by the Washtenaw Health Initiative Steering Committee. The learning community, which aims to double cardiac arrest survival rates in the region, is comprised of multidisciplinary representatives from Michigan’s Washtenaw-Livingston County Medical Control Authority, a two-county entity that coordinates emergency medical services. “Rapid treatment […]
On August 30, Ellen Rabinowitz will retire from the Washtenaw County Health Department and the Washtenaw Health Plan. She is looking forward to a year-long break and after that expects to re-engage with the community in new ways. Liz Conlin, WHI Communications Committee chair, sat down with Ellen to discuss her history with the WHI […]
Megan Foster Friedman, CHRT staff representative to the Washtenaw Health Initiative’s Medicaid and Marketplace Outreach and Enrollment Work Group, spoke at the spring conference of the Michigan Society of Healthcare Planning and Marketing (MSHPM). The organization includes marketing representatives and strategic planners for Michigan-based hospitals, physician practices, and health plans. Foster Friedman’s presentation, The State […]
In “Realizing the value of community health workers–new opportunities for sustainable financing,” a New England Journal of Medicine Perspectives piece, SIM Project Manager Jeremy Lapedis and colleagues from Poverty Solutions and the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation describe new mechanisms for financing community health workers far into the future. “CHW-led interventions have been shown […]
Ruth Kraut, Program Administrator for the Washtenaw County Health Plan, spoke with WHI communications chair Liz Conlin on April 17, 2019. What inspired your passion for public health? A: I started my career in environmental education at the Ann Arbor Ecology Center. I decided to make a career change and received master’s degrees in […]
Community leaders came together on April 3 to discuss the WHI’s community-wide care coordination intervention for frequent Emergency Department (ED) users (aka, the SIM). Directors from the SIM’s 11 founding partners (hublets) and partner entities were invited to attend, and roughly two-dozen came out to participate in the conversation. At tables of eight, patterned after […]
By Jillian Rosen, Vice President for Community Investment, Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation Life for everyone in 2040 will be shaped to a large degree by how we respond now to the needs of the aging. The Vital Seniors Initiative was first launched as “Vital Seniors: A Community Innovation Competition” in 2018 as an effort […]