Washtenaw Health Initiative

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 […]

The second convening of the three-part ABLe Change Process took place February 20 and 21 at the Dawn Farm Community Barn in Ypsilanti. Roughly five-dozen participants from a range of substance use prevention and treatment programs attended, collaborating on an action plan to improve community wellbeing and reduce harm from substance use. During the first […]

In 2018, Medicaid and Marketplace Outreach and Enrollment Work Group member organizations–including Aid in Milan, Michigan Medicine, St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor, and the Washtenaw Health Plan–assisted low-income, uninsured, underinsured, and other individuals with more than 11,648 Medicaid or Healthy Michigan Plan applications and 741 Health Insurance Marketplace applications. The Washtenaw Health Plan, located in […]

Over the next three months, the Washtenaw Health Initiative (WHI) will engage in a series of conversations with stakeholders and partners to inform strategic priorities for the next three years (2019 – 2022). At the February 22 meeting, stakeholders reviewed past and current WHI projects, feedback from the 2018 member survey, and potential strategic priorities […]

Dale Berry, recently retired President of Huron Valley Ambulance and CEO of Emergent Health Partners, spoke with WHI communications chair Liz Conlin on January 9. What inspired your passion for public health?   In 1975, I began my career as a police officer in South Lyon. At that time, police were dispatched to ambulance calls and […]

Ebony Curry is beaming. With temperatures dropping quickly, she’s been worried about one of her clients–someone who’s been in and out of the ER a lot lately–who can no longer fit into his winter coat. After a series of calls, she’s found one that will fit and clearly can’t wait to get it to him. As […]

Please join us in welcoming new members of the WHI steering committee including community representative Krista Girty, executive director of Ozone House, and organizational representatives Mark S. Hausman, Jr., chief of staff for the VA Ann Arbor Health System, and Bill Manns, president of St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor and Livingston. Krista Girty, executive director […]