Eighty reproductive or birth justice organizations supported by Groundswell Fund or via one of its grantmaking partners reflected on their work, progress made, and challenges encountered in 2021. They described the headwinds and tailwinds they faced, the allies they worked with, and their strategies. Collectively, these organizations have programs in... Read more »

The Achievable Health Center opened in 2013 in Culver City, California, as an innovative, licensed health center with a unique model of care, serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. The Health Center was created out of the founders’ understanding of patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities... Read more »

In 2016, Santa Clara County’s Behavioral Health Services Department (SCC BHSD) hired Informing Change to evaluate their School Linked Services initiative, currently implemented in 13 school districts. This initiative places at least one coordinator in each district to serve as the point of contact for students and families seeking referrals... Read more »

The Safety Net Analytics Program (SNAP), implemented by Center for Care Innovations and funded by California Health Care Foundation, was created to help safety net organizations develop a data-driven culture and to strengthen the people, processes and technology behind data analytics. SNAP engaged 20 grantee teams to grow and develop... Read more »

The team for Contra Costa Health System’s (CCHS) Safety Net Analytics Program (SNAP) had a clear goal in mind: use data to predict and address the needs of CCHS’s most high-utilizing, vulnerable patients. Meeting these high utilizers’ needs requires a range of providers to coordinate both their services and the... Read more »

The vast sea of data available to safety net healthcare providers is only helpful if staff can interpret and use that data. Enter dashboards, which enable data-sharing among staff—from frontline to administrative staff and across all departments and sites—in a consistent, visually accessible way. As one of the most-used strategies... Read more »

As California faces the challenges of an evolving healthcare landscape, there is an unprecedented need for a committed and adaptable network of leaders in the community health centers field. To meet this need and strengthen the next generation of community health center leaders, The Blue Shield of California Foundation partnered... Read more »

Funded by Blue Shield of California Foundation, the Clinic Leadership Institute’s New Executive Transitions (nEXt) program provides new community health center CEOs with knowledge, skills and networks to succeed in their positions. The year-long program consists of in-person program meetings, mentor/advisor relationships and ongoing informal networking. Informing Change’s evaluation of... Read more »

In 2012, Blue Shield of California Foundation launched the Executive Excellence program (Ex2), the most recent addition to the suite of Clinic Leadership Institute programs. Administered by UCLA Anderson Executive Education, Ex2 offers a range of instruction and supports to catalyze leadership and effectiveness among executive teams in California’s community health... Read more »

Published in the Clinic Leadership Institute’s seventh year, this dashboard showcases how the program continued to develop individual leaders, strengthen sponsoring organizations and bolster California’s community health centers system so it will thrive for years to come. In the evaluation findings, highlighted by Informing Change in a data dashboard and short deck,... Read more »

As California faces the challenges of an evolving healthcare landscape and the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, there is an unprecedented need for a committed and adaptable network of leaders in the community health centers field. To meet this need, Blue Shield of California Foundation has... Read more »

In January 2012, 13 community health centers throughout California received one-year “seed” funding and support to develop innovative ideas, support “out of the box” thinking and test new solutions to common problems in health care. The Center for Care Innovation and Blue Shield of California Foundation engaged Informing Change to... Read more »

For the past few years, healthcare administrators and providers have been getting ready for the Affordable Care Act by re-examining and making changes to their current systems. They are preparing for an influx of newly insured patients, attempting to position themselves as providers of choice within their communities and working... Read more »

Over the past four years, the Center for Care Innovations (formerly the Community Clinics Initiative) has supported creative ways of promoting health in underserved communities through their Networking for Community Health program. CCI, through generous support from The California Endowment, offered grants and non-monetary supports to community clinics across California... Read more »

The Blue Shield of California Foundation and the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco launched the Clinic Leadership Institute Emerging Leaders program to prepare emerging leaders to move into executive positions. But how do the learnings from a structured leadership program translate to the... Read more »

The Blue Shield of California Foundation is partnering with the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco to design and implement the Clinic Leadership Institute Emerging Leaders program. This intensive, 18-month program prepares emerging leaders to move into executive positions within five to eight years... Read more »

As part of the evaluation of the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI)’s Networking for Community Health (NCH) program, Informing Change is examining how community clinics strengthen their working relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners to promote community health. This report focuses on a sub-set of NCH projects that focus on... Read more »

In 2008, the Community Clinic’s Initiative launched a $1.6 million effort, the Community Health Organizing Project, to support statewide and regional advocacy efforts around health care reform and budget issues. The Project provided funding to the California Primary Care Association (CPCA) and 15 regional clinic networks working to bring more... Read more »

Shasta Community Health Center (SCHC) engaged with Informing Change to assess the effectiveness of its Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Scribe Model, which utilize scribes to enter medical information into EHRs during patient visits. This report looks at the impact of this demonstration project on clinician and patient satisfaction with the... Read more »

As part of the evaluation of the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI)’s Networking for Community Health (NCH) program, Informing Change is examining how community clinics strengthen their working relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners to promote community health. This brief focuses on a sub-set of NCH projects that are engaging... Read more »

In 2008, The Blue Shield of California Foundation partnered with the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco to address leadership needs in the community clinics field. They launched the Clinic Leadership Institute (CLI), an 18-month leadership program designed to prepare next generation leaders to... Read more »

In 2008, The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI) launched their Networking for Community Health (NCH) grantmaking program. The program was designed to support California community clinics in strengthening their working relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners. Over the past three years, CCI has supported clinics’ projects that work on a... Read more »

Social websites have rapidly grown into large, sophisticated networks that can span the globe.This brief provides a snapshot of one nonprofit online community—the Community Clinic Voice. The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI) supports the Voice to aid health care safety net professionals in building stronger, healthier communities. The brief explores the... Read more »

Community health workers, public health aides, promotores and peer educators are all terms used to describe the role of community health promoters. These workers are recruited from communities to apply their knowledge of the area and their personal connections with residents to promote the public’s health. The Community Clinics Initiative requested... Read more »

In 2008, The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI)’s launched their new Networking for Community Health grantmaking program. The program provides California community clinics with two-year grants to strengthen networking efforts with other organizations to promote the health of the communities they serve. Grantees’ networks have addressed a variety of community health... Read more »

This report describes the findings and implications from a study of emerging leaders within the community clinics field in California. It looks at the degree to which their group of clinic staff are interested in and poised to become future CEOs, medical directors or other senior leaders in community clinics... Read more »

This report describes the findings and implications from a study of Medical Directors within California’s community clinics field. It looks at Medical director’s career pathways and their current job satisfaction, the most significant rewards and challenges of their leadership position, the extent to which they share leadership with others and... Read more »

This report describes the findings and implications from an assessment of CEOs within California’s community clinics field. It looks at CEO’s perspectives on their current position, career path and aspirations, job challenges and rewards and the types of support that are most important for them to be successful in their... Read more »

What kinds of actions taken now would ensure that community clinics have the leaders they need to meet the impending challenges of coming years? In 2008, two leading health care funders in California—the Blue Shield of California Foundation and the Community Clinics Initiative, a joint project of Tides and The... Read more »

In 2008, Informing Change examined the ways in which the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment, has sought to develop and strengthen leadership in community clinics in California. Throughout the life of the Initiative, CCI has aimed to enhance the capacities of its... Read more »

This evaluation brief outlines how the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment, has been successful in effecting broad and deep social change within the community-clinics field in California. In addition to a description of CCI’s impacts and the evaluation design, the brief discusses... Read more »

During Informing Change’s multi-year evaluation of the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), we observed that CCI was particularly effective in extracting knowledge and lessons while the evaluation was underway. This made their grantmaking more responsive and strategic. In this article, we identify five tactics that CCI used to ensure that the... Read more »

The Kaiser Permanente Community Clinic Partnership (the Partnership) is a collaboration of Kaiser Permanente (KP) in California and the state’s system of community clinics. KP contracted with BTW informing change to examine the Partnership experience within KP,  the clinic networks and individual clinics. The evaluation focuses on the Partnership’s first phase of... Read more »

In 2016, Santa Clara County’s Behavioral Health Services Department (SCC BHSD) hired Informing Change to evaluate their School Linked Services initiative, currently implemented in 13 school districts. This initiative places at least one coordinator in each district to serve as the point of contact for students and families seeking referrals... Read more »

Over the last four years, Informing Change has partnered with the Health Forward Foundation (HFF, formerly the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City) to build a framework for evaluating the Foundation’s three portfolios: Safety Net, Mental Health, and Healthy Communities. Our team worked closely with each portfolio to construct... Read more »

In 2016, Santa Clara County’s Behavioral Health Services Department (SCC BHSD) hired Informing Change to evaluate their School Linked Services initiative, currently implemented in 13 school districts. This initiative places at least one coordinator in each district to serve as the point of contact for students and families seeking referrals... Read more »