Boston Alliance for Community Health

Initiatives and Activities

"When you add us all up, BACH's membership is in the thousands. Some of us are from the neighborhood and some of us are from an organization. We may not always agree on everything, but in the end, we all want the same thing: safe and healthy communities."

News

Healthier Roxbury to host “Listening and Learning” Sessions

Posted: December 11th, 2013

Healthier Roxbury, BACH’s collaboration with the Greater Boston Aligning Forces for Quality Initiative (GB AF4Q), is an effort to bring the community together by strengthening connections between hospitals, health centers, and community programs and residents to achieve better health, beginning first with diabetes. Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP) is the operational home for GB AF4Q, an initiative supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Greater Boston is one of 16 communities across the country participating in the AF4Q, which is Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s premier effort to lift the overall quality of health care in communities across the country. GB AF4Q’s work acknowledges the breadth and depth of health expertise and innovation in our community and identifies the areas where investment can build on what organizations are already doing. Targeting our efforts on the interface between primary care and emergency care presents an important opportunity to improve quality, equity and access for patients, as well as reduce costs.

The decision to focus on Roxbury was made through data analysis. While Roxbury has a solid infrastructure of programs, institutions, and groups dedicated to improving the health of community residents, its rates of hospitalizations for adults with diabetes are the highest among all Boston neighborhoods.

Healthier Roxbury and BACH’s Roxbury Coordinator, Federico Rivera are mobilizing to address diabetes by hosting a series of “Listening and Learning” conversations with non-profits, community health centers, and social service agencies throughout Roxbury as a strategy to listen and learn directly from community members with diabetes and their families about what it is like living with diabetes in their neighborhoods. The next step will be to organize a forum of community leaders dedicated to find ways to act upon what is learned in these conversations. This has the potential to enhance patient-centered care systems and inform their internal policies and practices to help improve diabetes care in Roxbury.

For more information about Healthier Roxbury and the Greater Boston Aligning Forces for Quality Initiative, please contact Federico Rivera, Roxbury Coordinator, at frivera@hria.org.