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Adirondack Healthcare Advocacy Group Awarded Grant To Bring Stakeholders Together

A member organization that includes healthcare providers from across the Adirondacks has received a 2.4 million dollar grant to reduce health risks through prevention.

The Adirondack Health Institute, a joint venture of Adirondack Health, Community Providers, Inc. which operates CVPH Medical Center in Plattsburgh, Glens Falls Hospital, and Hudson Headwaters Health Network, advocates for healthcare and works with providers and community organizations.

AHI is the recipient of a $2.4 million Population Health Improvement Program grant through the New York Department of Health announced this week. It aims to provide better healthcare to residents and lower costs at a time when the healthcare industry is gearing up for the second open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act.

With guidelines set by the the state’s Prevention Agenda and proposed State Health Innovation Plan, AHI will convene stakeholders from 14 different sectors — including mental health, substance abuse, nutrition, and others — to find what issues and barriers to healthcare are most prevalent in communities across a six-county region.

Megan Murphy is Community Health Services Director for AHI.

“Those issues may be similar or they may be slightly different, and so that’s why you really want to get down to that local planning level and help them work together to figure out what the best solution is. And it may not be more infrastructure, it may be that there just needs to be better communication or innovative ideas that are brought to the forefront.”

Barriers to healthcare could include poverty, lack of transportation, education, and others.

The grant will fund the AHI’s efforts to reach out to community stakeholders for the next two years. Part of the work will be to build a website that can provide information to the public, insurance buyers, and healthcare providers.

Lottie Jameson, Vice President of Regional Health Planning and Development, said in order to promote health and lower healthcare costs in the Adirondack Region as part of the Prevention Agenda and State Health Innovation Plan, it’s essential for all stakeholders to work together.

“To achieve those goals we know we have to stop working in silos, that we have to work across different sectors to really make a difference make a difference in healthcare status for the people living in our communities.”

AHI is one of 10 New York state regional contractors to receive the grant.

The organization is also involved in signing people up during the upcoming enrollment period.

“I think the challenge in a rural area is that sometimes our workforce in and of itself, it’s not convenient. You can be working someplace 8 hours, but maybe your drivetime back and forth to home is another hour on either end of that,” said Jameson. “I grew up in rural Washington County, I think we kind of have kind of a mindset and an attitude where a lot of folks feel like ‘Well I really don’t need any help.’”

AHI enrollment specialists help individuals sign up for health insurance at no charge. For more information visithttp://www.adirondackhealthinstitute.org/

Lucas Willard is a reporter and host at WAMC Northeast Public Radio, which he joined in 2011.
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