Healthy Weight Initiative
From Healthy Family Wiki
CAVU funding to date, in partnership with the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation:
$200,000
Results:
Opened 3 Healthy Weight Clinics with another 2 in planning stages.
Served over 140 kids.
In 2008 CAVU has launched a new Initiative designed to target pediatric overweight/obesity in the community health center setting. The Initiative will support the replication of the Healthy Weight Clinic, a clinical model piloted by Whittier Street Health Center in 2006, to three additional MA CHCs, as well as fostering collaboration among CHCs around the issue of childhood overweight/obesity. The goals of this Initiative are:
- To be a leader in addressing pediatric overweight/obesity in low-income populations,
- To standardize the care of pediatric overweight/obesity in MA CHCs,
- To successfully implement a condition-specific collaboration platform that is replicable for other conditions, and
- To successfully implement a data sharing capability that can be replicated for additional collaborative efforts.
The Healthy Weight Initiative (HWI) is led by a team of professionals dedicated to addressing pediatric overweight/obesity through community health providers. Team members include:
- Shikha Anand, MD, MPH, HWI Medical Director, Director of Pediatrics at Whittier Street Health Center and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center
- William Adams, MD, HWI Advisor and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center
- Chad Wright, HWI Advisor on Information Technology
- Chip Cyr, HWI Advisor on Information Technology
- Deirdre Connor, Director of Operations, CAVU
- Penny Marston, HWI Program Manager, CAVU
- Kris Cyr, Development Consultant, CAVU
The Healthy Weight Initiative (HWI) employs a collaborative approach of replicating a single clinical model (the Healthy Weight Clinic) at participating health centers, supported by centralized technical assistance and data collection. The HWI focuses on enhancing CHC core competencies by utilizing clinical, nutritionist and case management resources that are familiar and/or available to many CHCs. Much of this activity is billable, ensuring a sustainable revenue stream to support the Healthy Weight Clinic in the long term. The collaborative meetings and infrastructure and centralized technical assistance provide frequent CHC interaction and reporting of data to promote rapid and constant learning by the CHC participants and to improve the continuity and quality of care for overweight/obese pediatric patients.
To date, there are four operational Healthy Weight Clinic sites, including Whittier Street Health Center, which piloted the model. The three CHCs that joined the Initiative this summer were Holyoke Health Center, Greater Lawrence Family Health Center and Codman Square Health Center. In selecting sites, CAVU looked for CHCs with organizational commitment to the Initiative, a track record of addressing overweight/obesity, a sizeable patient need for services, and strong clinical leadership.
In addition to the Massachusetts CHCs, Coastal Family Health Center (Gulf Coast Mississippi) has obtained funding from the Johnson & Johnson Community Health Program to allow them to test the Healthy Weight Clinic model for implementation beyond Massachusetts. We will add additional Massachusetts health centers in 2009, including Outer Cape Health Services, a CAVU partner who is currently in the planning phases for implementing the model.
Collaboration is a key element of the Healthy Weight Initiative, as health centers have not historically had a CHC-driven venue for collaboration around pediatric obesity. Through a combination of live meetings, conference calls, and online collaborative applications (the Healthy Weight Blog and the Healthy Weight Wiki) health centers are able to learn from each other and from experts in the field to ensure high quality patient care. In addition, sites receive quarterly site visits from the Healthy Weight Medical Director, Dr. Shikha Anand, and from the HWI Program Manager, Penny Marston, to ensure that clinic staff receive any technical support they need. CAVU has also developed an online data collection and reporting system, which facilitates data collection and reporting both for individual clinics and in aggregate. CAVU will evaluate the success of the HWI through both clinical outcomes for patients and improvements in the quality of care provided at participating sites.
CAVU is also partnering on the HWI with Good Sports, a Boston-based non-profit whose mission is to increase youth participation in sports, fitness, and recreational programs by targeting one of the major obstacles limiting participation - access to sports equipment. Working with the Healthy Weight Clinic staff at health centers participating in CAVU's Healthy Weight Initiative, Good Sports will provide patients with exercise equipment necessary for them to reach their fitness goals. This partnership will allow patients to participate in sports and other fitness activities that may have previously been inaccessible due to the cost of necessary equipment. Good Sports will also provide incentives to reward patients' participation and success in the Healthy Weight Clinics.
To learn more about the Healthy Weight Initiative, please read the HWI Executive Summary.
In the future, this page will report on the ways in which the Healthy Weight Clinics are being implemented, as well as the impact of the clinics on their communities. We hope that this will lead to a better understanding of the challenges faced by each CHC, which in turn will help prepare and inform prospective HWC sites.
HWI Collaborators and Partners
Vermont Child Health Improvement Program
National Initiative for Child Healthcare Quality
Boston Medical Center / Boston University School of Medicine
