Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services | March 2021 | 6
Application for Transformation
Funding Cover Sheet
Entity Name_________________________________
Primary contact_____________________________
Entity Name_________________________________
Primary contact_____________________________
Chicago Housing Authority Mary C. Howard, PhD, LCPC
Chief Resident Services Officer
Saint Anthony Hospital
Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer
sspencer@sahchicago.org
Elvena Conda-Dickson
TaleseD@twobehealthy.com
Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services | March 2021 | 6
Application for Transformation
Funding Cover Sheet
Entity Name_________________________________
Primary contact_____________________________
Entity Name_________________________________
Primary contact_____________________________
4S Wellness Services, LLC
CEO
wilkeswellness@gmail.com
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The 2B Healthy Collaboratives pilot is a multidisciplinary partnership designed to
improve the health of low-income African-American and Latinx mothers and
children living in public housing in historically disinvested communities on
Chicago’s West Side.
(HTC) funding target for collaborative partnerships between hospitals and other
providers to provide 2,400 maternal and child health medical sessions to 1,877
low-income mothers and children living in public housing in Chicago’s East Garfield
Park, Little Village, and North Lawndale communities.
Our Partners
Our collaborative partners include:
Saint Anthony’s Hospital: Saint Anthony’s Hospital is an award-winning
community hospital that is a recognized leader in maternal and child health and
is among the top 10 hospitals in Illinois for patient safety. It is the only hospital in
the city of Chicago to receive the Perinatal Care Certification from The Joint
Commission for its integrated, patient-centered care for mothers and newborns.
Saint Anthony’s will allow our staff to rent office space in their building and store
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Chicago Housing Authority: The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) is the
second largest public housing agency in the United States. CHA will allow our
medical professionals to serve clients on their premises via our mobile clinics,
allow our team to recruit and enroll clients on their premises, and refer residents
to CHA’s preferred vendors to provide healthcare services.
4S Wellness Services: 4S Wellness Services is a community-based social
service agency that supports individuals and families with behavioral and mental
health services. Healthcare professionals from 4S Wellness Services will provide
individual and group counseling, health screenings, assessments, and education
for our targeted population.
Wilkes Wellness Services: Wilkes Wellness Services is a transitional care
management provider for Medicaid recipients that provides integrated behavioral
health, transitional care management to reduce hospital admissions, and in home
services including crisis intervention, counseling and support, referrals to
specialists, care plan assessments, and more. Wilkes Wellness Services will be
the collaborative partner that will bill Medicaid for services provided to
participating mothers and children.
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2B Healthy LLC: 2B Healthy Collaboratives, LLC is the lead applicant for the 2B
Healthy Collaboratives Pilot Program. 2B Healthy Collaboratives, LLC will
administer the program and coordinate the activities of all collaborative partners.
The direct client care staff, Medical Director, Social Workers, Registered Nurses
and Nurse Practitioners, will be employees of 2B Healthy LLC. The leaders of 2B
Healthy Collaboratives, LLC have a long history of successful business and
healthcare operational experience. This includes the “lived experience” of Elvena
Conda-Dickson, COO, as a former resident of multiple CHA high-rise and
low-rise housing facilities.
Appendix A includes letters of support from our collaborative partners.
Our Goals The goals for the 2B Healthy Collaboratives pilot are as follows:
1. To utilize social workers to assess the needs of our targeted population and
identify resources and solutions to address the social determinants of health.
2. To utilize a patient-centered, community-based approach to provide prenatal and
postpartum care to low-income African-American and Latinx mothers and their
children living in public housing on Chicago’s West Side via mobile clinics.
3. To improve the health of mothers and their children through preventative and
intervention behavioral health and medical services.
4. To provide educational services that improve the health literacy and self-efficacy
of low-income minority mothers living in public housing so they will feel
empowered to effectively manage their health and improve their health
outcomes.
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5. To produce findings from this quasi-experimental study that can add to the
literature on delivering anti-racist, culturally relevant prenatal and postpartum
care to low-income minority mothers and their children that will positively
influence policies and procedures in healthcare in serving these vulnerable
populations.
Through the provision of culturally competent preventive health services that
address the social determinants of health, we anticipate that the 2B Healthy
Collaboratives pilot program will save an estimated $1,080,000 each year in
unnecessary emergency room visits, hospital admissions, and other preventable
medical costs.
Community Service Area The neighborhoods served through this project - East Garfield Park (60624), North
Lawndale (60608 and 60612), and Little Village (officially known as South Lawndale; zip
code 60623) - are among the Chicago neighborhoods with the highest rates of maternal
death, infant mortality, and other largely preventable maternal and child health
disparities.
We have received approval from Tracey Scott, Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago
Housing Authority, to serve four public housing family properties through this project:
Brooks Homes (1353-71 S. Loomis Chicago, IL 60608), Bridgeport Apartments (3175 S.
Lituanica Chicago, IL 60608), Horner-Westhaven (25 S. Hoyne Chicago, IL 60612), and
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Lawndale Gardens (2537 S. California Chicago, IL 60608). There are a total of 802
households and 1,877 residents in these facilities.
Our Strategy and New Interventions The 2B Healthy Collaboratives will address the social determinants of health for
low-income African-American and Latinx mothers and their children living in public
housing in Chicago to connect them with the preventive healthcare they need to lead
healthier lives. By providing education, assessments and preventive comprehensive
healthcare via a patient-centered, community-based service delivery model, this project
will address the social determinants of health for this vulnerable population, improve
their access to care, improve the delivery of medical care they receive, and ultimately
will reduce health disparities. A multidisciplinary team of medical professionals,
including nurse practitioners, registered nurses, social workers, and midwives, under
oversight of a physician medical director, will visit public housing sites via fully
self-contained mobile clinics and provide onsite services including prenatal care,
postpartum care, primary care, pediatric care, childhood immunizations, and healthcare
screenings (for breast cancer, depression, and other conditions). The diagram below
provides a high level perspective of our model.
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September 2025.
Community Input
Community Service Area The 2B Healthy Collaboratives pilot program will serve Chicago’s North Lawndale (zip
codes 60608 and 60612), East Garfield Park (zip code 60624), and Little Village (zip
code 60623) neighborhoods. Located in Chicago’s 24th and 22nd Wards, these
historically disinvested communities are plagued by high rates of poverty, violence, and
crime. These communities are among Chicago’s most distressed neighborhoods with
the highest rates of chronic health conditions and residents with poor health outcomes.
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Establishing Community Needs and Obtaining Community Input Based on data collected from community gap analyses and needs assessments, we
developed a multi-faceted, comprehensive approach to improve health outcomes for
low-income mothers and children living in public housing. In 2020 (before the
pandemic), we met in-person with Chicago Housing Authority residents at the Lake Parc
Place in Chicago’s Oakland neighborhood (3983 S. Lake Park Chicago, IL 60653) to
discuss the 2B Healthy Collaboratives pilot program and solicit community input. At this
meeting, arranged by the building’s resident advisory council president, residents
identified three key healthcare challenges in their communities: lack of health education
for people to manage their health, a lack of preventive care and treatment, and lack of
access to resources. Our team presented a preliminary version of the proposal
described herein to provide home health, wellness programs, and other home-based
health interventions to address the social determinants of health of residents living in
public housing in a historically disinvested community. Our proposal was well received
by residents. While the Lake Parc Place building will not be part of the initial 2B Healthy
Collaboratives pilot (because it is not in the geographic service area of Saint Anthony
Hospital), the demographics of the Oakland community are similar to the neighborhoods
that will be served through this project.
Pending the receipt of Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives (HTC) funding to
launch the project, we plan to meet with residents at each building within the East
Garfield Park, North Lawndale, and Little Village (officially known as South Lawndale)
communities to determine their needs and work with residents to implement (and adjust)
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our programming accordingly. Based on the feedback that we will receive during those
meetings, we intend to adapt our program to best suit the needs of residents.
As part of our commitment to continuous quality improvement, we will create the 2B
Healthy Collaboratives Advisory Council, composed of key stakeholders to oversee the
governance and implementation of this project. The key stakeholders include the 2B
Healthy Collaboratives Partners, community members, including representatives of our
targeted CHA population, will be directly involved in the Advisory Council to obtain their
direct input.
Support from Local Elected Officials In addition to obtaining community input, we have obtained endorsement from local
elected officials. Our team has pending meetings to discuss the 2B Healthy
Collaboratives pilot program with the offices of additional local elected officials.
Appendix B includes letters of support from U.S. Congressman Danny K. Davis, State
Senator & Majority Leader Kimberly A. Lightford, and Cook County Commissioner (1st
District) Brandon Johnson.
Our team conducted comprehensive community needs assessments, gap analyses,
and literature reviews to identify the myriad of health concerns, conditions, and plaguing
low-income women and children living in public housing. Specifically, we utilized data
from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health and Institute
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Healthcare Delivery Design (for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family
Services), the Healthy Chicago Survey, the Chicago Health Atlas, Healthy Chicago
2025 (formerly Healthy Chicago 2.0), and various articles in peer-reviewed journals
such as The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, the Journal of General Internal
Medicine, and others.
Disparities in Clinical Care
Residents in the North Lawndale, East Garfield Park, and Little Village neighborhoods
face inequitable access to high-quality clinical care due to poverty, crime, and
institutional racism. Research shows that the physical environment, socioeconomic
factors, clinical care, health behaviors, and health outcomes - the social determinants of
health - disproportionately impact populations (especially low-income minorities) who
face intersectional challenges due to their race, gender, socioeconomic, and
employment status.
Based on data from community needs assessments, gap analyses, and literature
reviews of innovative approaches to addressing the social determinants of health, we
identified the myriad of health concerns plaguing low-income mothers living in public
housing in communities in the 60608, 60612, 60623, and 60624 zip codes. Our team
identified addressable areas of health concerns based on the strengths of our
collaborative partners and the needs of our constituents. Through our research, we
identified four key barriers that impede our target population from accessing healthcare.
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1. Distrust of the healthcare system and medical professionals
Research shows that people from vulnerable groups including low-income
people, the uninsured, and non-English speakers are the least likely to trust
medical professionals and the healthcare system for a variety of reasons.
According to a 2017 report by the Advisory Board, 53% of low-income adults
distrust physicians specifically, noting that American doctors cannot be trusted.
Similarly, a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Right Place, Right
Time initiative on the experiences of marginalized groups with the American
healthcare system found that low-income patients reported a variety of reasons
for this lack of trust including the feeling that that they were viewed as “less than”
by healthcare professionals and accordingly perceived that they were treated
with a lack of respect due to their income level, insurance status, and race. While
the lack of eye contact, condescending tone, and dismissal of their concerns and
systems was only attributed to medical doctors, the negative experiences of
study participants tainted their perception of all other health professionals.
Medicaid recipients in particular are more likely to report that their health
concerns were downplayed and higher levels of disrespect because of their
insurance and that they feel that they would receive better treatment if they had
private insurance. Our culturally competent staff, who have experience
working with vulnerable populations, will eliminate cultural and language
barriers and build caring, trusting relationships with patients based on
respect and empathy.
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The lack of patient-provider trust for low-income patients leads to poorer health
outcomes. A study of health care outcomes in low-income prenatal and
postpartum women (ages 18-45, 67% of whom were African-American) in the
United States published in the Family Practice journal found that women who had
less trust in their physicians were unwilling to follow their advice. Furthermore,
most women reported having most trusting relationships with nurses and
community or lay health workers. Our 2B Healthy Collaboratives pilot
program will help build trust among low-income mothers due to our focus
on service delivery provided by culturally competent clinicians serving
patients through an anti-racist lens.
2. Lack of trained, culturally competent health care providers
According to the Sinai Community Health Survey 2.0, 28% of North
Lawndale and 30% of Little Village residents reported being treated unfairly
in the past year by a healthcare professional because of their race,
ethnicity, or color. African-Americans and Latinx people are more likely to report
less partnership with physicians, less satisfaction with care, and less participation
in medical decisions (Cooper & Roter, 2003). According to the Georgetown
University Health Policy Institute, “a culturally competent healthcare system can
help improve health outcomes and quality of care, and can contribute to the
elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.” Through our project, we will
train and provide culturally competent staff who will meet the social,
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mothers and their children.
3. Lack of transportation to medical appointments
Studies have found that transportation is a major barrier to healthcare access,
particularly among low-income populations due to the distance to travel and the
access and availability of transportation. In general, those who use public
transportation and live further away from the hospital or clinic where they receive
care were more likely to note transportation-related impediments to accessing
care including missed appointments, lack of regular care, missing filling
prescriptions and less health care utilization. Single mothers are more likely to be
low-income and take public transportation (Wang, 2020), which negatively
impacts their ability to access care.
In their study of the impact of transportation on health outcomes for low-income
patients Silver, Blustein, and Weitzman (2012) found that one-quarter of all
missed and/or rescheduled appointments resulted from transportation.
Additionally, they found that those who relied on public transportation were twice
as likely to miss their appointments as those with access to cars. Similarly, a
study of transit accessibility to health care in the San Francisco Bay Area found
that 55% of missed appointments or late arrivals were the result of public
transportation. Yang et al.’s study of inner city low-income mothers and
caregivers of children found that 82% of those who kept their appointments had
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access to a car, compared to 58% of those who cancelled their appointments. By
providing services via our mobile clinic, our program will significantly
reduce transportation-related barriers to health care access for low-income
mothers.
4. Reliance on emergency room utilization for primary care and
hesitancy to seek care
A study found that the use of emergency rooms for preventable conditions by
medically vulnerable populations in the United States costs as much as nearly
$31 billion per year, according to Health Affairs. Research from Kangovi et al
(2013) found that low-income minority people prefer to utilize emergency room
care because they believe it is less expensive, more accessible than outpatient
care, and believe they receive a higher quality of care. We will reduce mothers’
emergency room utilization - and help them better manage their health and
the health of their babies - by ensuring that they receive early and adequate
prenatal and postpartum care.
Health Equity and Outcomes
The 2B Healthy Collaboratives aims to improve the maternal and child health outcomes
for African-American and Latinx mothers and their children living in public housing in
vulnerable Chicago communities. Our targeted population faces a unique set of
intersectional challenges due to their race/ethnicity, income, poverty levels, and housing
status that makes the social determinants that impact their health even more
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are outlined below.
Mortality Rates The United States has the worst rate of maternal death among highly industrialized
countries. According to the 2018 Illinois Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Report,
Chicago has the highest rate of pregnancy-related mortality compared to other
geographic areas across the state of Illinois. Black women in Illinois are six times
more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth complications compared to White women,
a figure that is twice as large as the national average. Black women are more likely than
White women to have pregnancy complications including preeclampsia, hypertension,
and gestational diabetes. Nonetheless, data from the Centers for Disease Control
indicate that at least 60% of all maternal deaths in the United States are preventable.
Data from the Illinois Department of Public Health shows that Chicago has a higher
infant mortality rate than the rest of the United States, figures that demonstrate
significant racial and ethnic disparities. Research from the National Center for Health
Statistics indicates that the infant mortality for Black babies in Cook County was
three times to four times that of White infants. The top causes of infant mortality in
Chicago are attributed to premature birth and low birth weight, birth defects, maternal
pregnancy complications, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Since 2018, four hospitals on Chicago’s South and West Sides have closed, leaving
pregnant women with African-American and Latinx women in maternity desserts. These
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women are more likely to have to travel outside their communities - primarily on public
transportation - to receive the care they need to deliver healthy babies. In order to
encourage women to receive maternity care at Saint Anthony’s Hospital - which is in
their neighborhood - we will address the social determinants that impact their health.
Unmet Behavioral and Mental Health Needs
Two of the communities (zip codes 60612 and 60624) served through this program are
among the six Chicago zip codes that are most affected by behavioral health
hospitalizations. Residents in the communities that we will serve are continuously
exposed to high rates of violence and crime, which has a negative affect on mental
health. A 2018 study of low-income Black mothers and children in Chicago
published in The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics found that 56% of mothers
had post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and 48% reported mild to severe
depressive symptoms. This further underscores the need for postpartum care as
mothers suffering from unmet mental health needs are less likely to obtain necessary
medical treatment for themselves or their children.
Lack of Access to Early and Adequate Prenatal Care and Postpartum Care
Based on data from the Sinai Community Health Survey 2.0, conducted by Sinai Urban
Health Institute among North Lawndale mothers, 27% have given birth to a low birth
weight baby and 32% have had a baby born prematurely. Low birth weight babies are
more susceptible to long-term chronic health conditions that results in worse poor health
outcomes and death. Research shows that expectant mothers significantly reduce the
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risk of having low birth weight babies by receiving adequate prenatal care and
maintaining good nutrition. The infant mortality rates for East Garfield Park and North
Lawndale are 101% and 82% higher (respectively) than the Chicago average.
Table 1: Clinical Care by Targeted Neighborhood
Neighborhood No Health Insurance
Have Primary Care Provider
Prenatal Care in the First Trimester
East Garfield Park
North Lawndale
15.1% 66.5% 57% 62.6%
Source: Chicago Health Atlas
Lack of Breast Cancer Screenings African-American women have the highest breast cancer death rates among all
racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Peek, Sayad, and Markwardt (2008) found
that lower mammogram utilization was one of the reasons attributed to this
disparity, noting that low-income Black women (in particular) are more likely to
fear breast cancer screening because of negative health care experiences, fear of
the healthcare system, and delays in seeking health care, among other issues.
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Quality Metrics
The 2B Healthy Collaboratives pilot program aligns with the following Illinois Department
of Healthcare and Family Services’ (HFS) Quality Strategy goals:
Better Care: Improve access to care
Healthy People/Healthy Communities: Improve participation in preventive care
and screenings
delivery system
disparities
to reduce disparities
Pillar Better Care Healthy People/Healthy Communities
Maternal and Child Health
Prenatal and Postpartum Care
Timeliness of prenatal care # of premature births # of low birth weight babies # of mothers who have received two or
more prenatal visits before 12 weeks of pregnancy (first trimester)
# of women who have four or more prenatal visits
# of women who receive necessary vaccinations (e.g.Tdap)
# of women screened for gestational diabetes, neural tube defects, depression, alcohol, tobacco, and drug use, intimate partner violence, and other applicable screenings
Maternal morbidity rate
within 48 hours # of postnatal visits within 90 days of
delivery # of women who receive mental health
screening for postpartum depression Neonatal hospital readmission rate
(within 7-90 days post-birth) Infant morbidity rate
Childhood immunization status # of children 0-35 months who receive
immunizations
Equity
screenings # of women who
The 2B Healthy Collaboratives will also track the following metrics:
The number of child wellness visits in the first 35 months of life
The number of Medicaid-eligible women living in public housing not currently
enrolled and/or who need to be re-registered
The number of uninsured children living in public housing not currently enrolled in
Medicaid or Illinois’ All Kids comprehensive insurance plan
Care Integration and Coordination
Our proposal improves the integration, efficiency, and coordination of care by providing
patient-centered community-based health care. Our culturally competent medical
professionals will uitlize an anti-racist lens to deliver high-quality care.
The 2B Health Collaboratives pilot program utilizes licensed clinical social workers who
will assess clients’ needs and develop individualized plans of preventive and
intervention healthcare services that mitigate addressable social determinants of health
(including access to care, lack of health insurance, transportation, nutritional education
and behaviors, etc.). Additionally, social workers will conduct wellness checks and
provide onsite evaluations.
vaccines, write prescriptions, and make referrals (to Saint Anthony Hospital and/or CHA
health vendors) as appropriate for medical services. Midwives (on staff at Saint
Anthony) will help expectant mothers stay healthy throughout their pregnancy, during
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labor, delivery, and after the birth of their babies, helping eliminate pregnancy concerns
among our targeted population, which is more susceptible to high-risk pregnancies and
births.
Access to Care
The 2B Healthy Collaboratives will improve the health care access for low-income
mothers and children living in public housing in Chicago’s East Garfield Park, North
Lawndale, and Little Village communities by providing prenatal and postpartum care,
pediatric care, primary care, preventive screening, disease management and
consultation, and referrals for necessary medical services. Utilizing a patient-centered,
community-based model, our program will provide affordable, high-quality culturally
competent preventive and intervention medical services that will improve our
constituents’ access to care, reduce their reliance on emergency room visits and
hospitalizations, and help them better manage their health ultimately contributing to
improvements in their health.
Patient-Centered Community-Based Care
The 2B Healthy Collaboratives pilot program will serve patients Monday through Friday
from 8am-5pm onsite at CHA facilities via fully self-contained mobile health clinics.
Clients will be referred to Saint Anthony and CHA approved health vendors as
necessary for specialty medical services. Our staff will rent office space at Saint
Anthony and store the mobile clinics on the hospital’s premises when not in use.
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Data suggests that mobile clinics make health care accessible for vulnerable
populations in a cost-effective delivery model that improves health outcomes among
marginalized communities by providing medical care that is geographically and
logistically convenient provided by clinicians they can trust. This intervention will
ultimately reduce healthcare costs by addressing the social determinants of health and
minimizing avoidable emergency department visits.
Research (Alva, R., et al, 2015, Morano et. al, 2014, Morano et. al, 2014, Garbers et.
al., 2016) has shown that mobile health clinics are effective at reaching high-risk
populations and individuals with multiple risk factors for infectious and chronic diseases
to participate in disease screenings for illnesses.
Mobile clinics, which primarily serve uninsured (60%) and publicly insured (31%)
populations, yield an average of $12 in savings for every $1 spent and result in
600 fewer emergency department visits each year (Mobile Health Map, 2021).
Our partner institution, Saint Anthony’s Hospital, is recognized as one of the top 10
hospitals in Illinois for patient safety, has a recognized pediatric practice and was the
first hospital in the state of Illinois (and the only one in Chicago) to receive the Perinatal
Care Certification from The Joint Commission for its integrated, patient-centered care
for mothers and newborns. For two consecutive years (2018 and 2019), Saint Anthony’s
won the IHA Innovation Challenge: Partners in Progress Award for impactful clinical
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innovation that can be implemented at other hospitals and health systems across the
state.
The hospital is a leader in detecting breast cancer and other disparate maternal and
childhood illnesses that contribute to maternal and childhood mortality rates. In fact,
Saint Anthony uses 3-D Mammography and is a FDA Approved Mammography Center.
Saint Anthony’s has agreed to provide a nurse practitioner and midwife as points of
contact for this project.
East Garfield Park, North Lawndale, and Little Village (South Lawndale) are all located
in the hospital’s geographic service area and its staff (medical and non-medical) are
fluent in English and Spanish. Saint Anthony’s accepts all insurance plans, including
Medicare and Medicaid.
The 2B Healthy Collaboratives will address the following social determinants including:
Lack of trust of the healthcare system and medical professionals
Lack of access to nutritious food
Health and nutrition education
Availability of community-based resources
Lack of transportation to medical appointments
Language and communication barriers
Our approach utilizes a patient-centered community-based model to healthcare that
focuses on building trust and establishing relational, continuous patient relationships.
We intend to engage the UIC Great Cities Institute as an evaluation consultant to
develop an assessment tool that will be used to collect data. Additionally, researchers
from the Great Cities Institute will analyze our data and identify key findings and
outcomes from our study.
Budget
Pending the receipt of HTC funds, we would like to negotiate the de minimis indirect
rate. Appendix C includes a copy of the budget for the 2B Healthy Collaboratives
project.
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Milestones
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The 2B Healthy Collaboratives is a multidisciplinary, multiracial/cultural, multilingual
team of individuals dedicated to improving the health of low-income minority mothers
and their children. As part of our orientation and onboarding practices, we will conduct
anti-racism and implicit bias training for staff. Additionally, we will make this training
available to medical professionals at Saint Anthony’s Hospital as well.
In order to transform the delivery of healthcare for low-income minority populations, we
want to ensure that healthcare professionals are educated about health disparities,
receive implicit bias training, and learn how to provide anti-racist, culturally competent
care, we intend to work with local medical and nursing schools across Chicagoland to
deliver this educational outreach programming. Ultimately, we will encourage these
institutions to revise their curricula to ensure that these topics are discussed in courses
required for graduation.
Our project will include an Advisory Council, composed of collaborative partners and
representatives from local community organizations. This group of stakeholders will
convene on a monthly basis to review operational and financial data and provide
feedback and suggestions for continuous improvement. In order to amplify and elevate
the voices of African-American and Latinx women, especially those served through this
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project, we will also include some of our clients as well as members of the Advisory
Council.
The goals for our Advisory Council are as follows:
1. To provide the strategic and operational guidance needed for continuous
improvement to ensure that our project provides high-quality healthcare to
low-income African-American and Latinx women and their children living in public
housing.
2. To advocate for policies and system changes that will improve health outcomes
for low-income minorities, especially mothers and children who are more
susceptible and vulnerable to preventable conditions and illnesses.
3. To educate the medical community about health disparities, the social
determinants of health, and how to provide anti-racist, culturally competent
healthcare to low-income minority communities.
A copy of our completed Racial Equity Questionnaire may be found in Appendix D.
Minority Participation
Three of our partners for this project, 2B Healthy Collaboratives, LLC, Wilkes Wellness
Services and 4S Wellness Services, are minority-owned and operated firms. 2B Healthy
Collaboratives, LLC and 4S Wellness Services are majority female and minority-owned
businesses. These businesses will be actively involved throughout the four-year
duration of the 2B Healthy Collaboratives pilot program, providing the preventive and
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intervention behavioral and medical services needed to address the social determinants
of health for our targeted population. While these entities have not yet completed the
Business Enterprise Program certification, they are recognized as businesses in good
standing with the state of Illinois.
Jobs
Our senior management team, led by Sheldon Flowers and Elvena Conda-Dickson, has
more than 20 years of healthcare industry and management experience working with
CHA residents, low-income minorities, the elderly, and other vulnerable, marginalized
populations that have poorer health outcomes due to their race/ethnicity, income, and
other socioeconomic factors. Appendix F includes the resumes of the senior
management team.
We intend to hire staff for the following positions for this pilot project:
Clinical Staff:
Our collaboration has activated a comprehensive fundraising development plan to
continue the provision of services in the future after transformation funds have been
expended. Our strategy involves developing a diverse portfolio of funding from a
plethora of philanthropic, corporate, and government (state and local) sources. If
awarded, funding from the Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives would act as a
signaling device to other funders, significantly increasing the likelihood that we would
receive funding. Our team, which has relationships with major philanthropic funders in
the Chicagoland area, intends to submit funding applications to the following entities:
the Aetna Foundation, Bank of America Foundation, the Healthy Communities
Foundation, and the VNA Foundation.
Revenue Generation The 2B Healthy Collaboratives project will participate in the Medicaid Fee-For-Service
program model to pay for the medical care services that we will provide participating
residents. Additionally, we will apply to become a CHA-approved vendor to continue our
services once we have demonstrated the effectiveness of the program.
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Governance Structure
Daily operating decisions will be made by the senior management team led by Sheldon
Flowers and Elvena Conda-Dickson. Mr. Flowers will oversee client serving operations
including the partner interface and Ms. Conda-Dickson will manage back office
administrative and financial operations.
The 2B Healthy Collaboratives partners will serve as an Advisory Council. The Advisory
Council will meet on a monthly basis to review operational progress, financial
performance versus budget, outcomes and address operational issues.
Each partner paid partner will execute a contract which specifies the scope of work,
contractual payment terms, and expected outcomes. Each non-paid partner will execute
a Memorandum of Understanding which defines expectations and mutually agreed upon
commitments.
Paid partners must submit invoices and other required documentation to validate
expenses billed to the Collaborative included in the budget. We will adhere to all
applicable regulations regarding allowable expenses (as articulated in the approved
HTC budget) and will practice accounting best practices, including the use of accounting
software such as QuickBooks to track HTC expenditures and revenues.
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References
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Cooper, L. A., Roter, D. L. 2003. Patient-provider communication: The effect of race and ethnicity on process and outcomes of healthcare. In B. D. Smedley, A. Y. Stith & A. R. Nelson (Eds.) Unequal treatment: Confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care (pp. 552-593). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
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Appendix A: Letters of Support from 2B Healthy Collaboratives Partners
Appendix B: Letters of Support from Local Elected Public Officials
Appendix C: 2B Healthy Collaboratives Budget
Appendix D: Racial Equity Questionnaire
Appendix E: Resumes of the Senior Management Team
Appendix F: Staff Job Descriptions