Health center wins grant from CVS foundation

A nonprofit health center has won a grant from the foundation of CVS Health that it will use to serve under-insured patients in the community.

Catherine’s Health Center in Grand Rapids received the $35,000 grant from the CVS Health Foundation as part of the foundation’s recent 55 grant awards to health centers.

The center was the lone clinic in West Michigan to win a grant.

Serving the under insured

Catherine’s Health Center has traditionally treated people who usually have no insurance, said Karen Kaashoek, executive director, Catherine’s Health Center.

Although many have received some kind of coverage through the Affordable Care Act, there still aren’t enough primary care providers to offer full treatment, she said.

Kaashoek said the center plans to use the grant to put together a team of doctors, nurses, social workers, medical assistants and others to develop holistic plans for each patient and give them more access to medical professionals.

“We have found in our clinic that our provider time is the most costly and scarcest resource we have,” Kaashoek said. “We are looking to develop a care team and a care-management process, so that we’ll have a multi-disciplined team of people.

“Right now, we’re limited by the number of patients we can see by the time doctors have for appointments. If we can be more efficient with the doctors’ time, we can see more people. And if the team is working with the patient on a more personal level, it could increase their health better and help them be monitored better.”

CVS foundation

CVS Health Foundation awarded the grant as part of its $5 million, multi-year goal to increase community health care nationwide.

The grants were administered through partnerships with the National Association of Community Health Centers, National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics and School-Based Health Alliance.

Since it began, CVS Health Foundation has awarded about $2.6 million in grants to nonprofits across the country.

“We are committed to addressing the need for more accessible, coordinated health care in our local communities,” said Eileen Howard Boone, president, CVS Health Foundation. "We’ve been able to make meaningful progress toward improving care coordination, better managing chronic conditions and increasing access to care."