Community Health Worker Resources from Families USA
Community Health Worker Impact Estimator Tools: Asthma & Diabetes
For generations, community leaders have seen how valuable community health workers (CHWs), promotores, community health representatives, and the many other variations of community-based peer support workers can be. Nevertheless, decision-makers often ask CHW advocates to make the business case for paying for CHW services and integrating them into care teams. To support these efforts, we worked with Katharine London and her team at the Center for Health Law and Economics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School to develop unique, interactive CHW Impact Estimator Tools.
Table of Contents:
Fact Sheets:
This report synthesizes key findings from PCORI’s CHW research and provides evidence-based recommendations to help state policymakers make CHWs integral members of health care delivery teams to improve individual and population health and potentially generate health care savings.
Infographics:
At a Glance: Pathways for Sustainably Funding Community Health Workers in Medicaid
If you are interested in securing sustainable funding for CHWs, this chart will provide you with high-level information about several pathways for doing so, and you can use it to compare and contrast the processes, advantages, and challenges of each pathway.
Reports:
White Paper – A Hard Day’s Work: Promoting Sustainable Financing for Community Health Workers
In this white paper we discuss the importance of Community Health Workers (CHWs), and how they are essential to addressing health disparities in our communities. We then offer an overview of the current financing landscape of CHWs, with a particular lens on how the COVID-19 pandemic shaped financing. Lastly, we share state and federal recommendations to sustainably pay for CHWs.
Deployment of community health workers (CHWs) has been limited in the United States for many years despite substantial evidence that shows the model’s effectiveness in many health care settings. During the coronavirus pandemic, the federal response in funding allowed for significant expansion. This issue brief draws on listening sessions we conducted with CHWs to develop recommendations for maintaining and building on the CHW deployment gains of the last two years.
Community Health Workers: Key Partners in Improving Children’s Health and Eliminating Inequities
This brief highlights the value of integrating CHWs into maternal and child health care delivery to effectively address a range of health care concerns and conditions for children and families, offering examples of specific initiatives that are promising or have demonstrated impact in improving health care and health outcomes for children of color.
This report reviews results from nine recent studies funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) that provide further support for including community health workers (CHWs) and peer providers (PPs) as important components of health care delivery that are particularly effective in addressing health and health care inequities. These studies underscore the enormous value of CHWs and PPs, an often overlooked, usually underutilized, yet highly versatile health workforce, as powerful health equity change agents. To facilitate scaling and integration of CHWs and PPs across the health care system, we translate this evidence into equity-focused policy recommendations for advocates to promote and decision-makers to adopt.
The current attention on implementing delivery and payment reforms to improve the quality of care and health outcomes while reducing costs creates an important opportunity for greater integration of CHWs into the health care system and for providing more sustainable financing for CHWs. In this brief, we detail how health system transformation initiatives in Vermont and Oregon align with the value that CHWs provide and how these initiatives can incentivize CHW integration.
This brief discusses the value of community health workers (CHWs) in improving care while reducing disparities for vulnerable populations. It also walks advocates through how they can get sustainable funding for CHWs in their state.
Despite evidence that CHWs have a positive effect on access to care and health outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged communities, the lack of sustainable funding for their work prevents broader integration of CHWs into the health system. Advocates, CHWs, and other stakeholders in New Mexico have worked with Medicaid-managed care organizations to address this challenge, and their experiences developing and implementing this model offer lessons for how other states can better fund and support CHWs.
Issue Brief: How States Can Use Medicaid Managed Care Contracts to Support Community Health Workers
Medicaid managed care contracting is a promising pathway for securing more sustainable funding for community health workers (CHWs). This issue brief provides examples of contract language that can be used to incentivize or require Medicaid managed care organizations to utilize and fund CHWs and considerations for advocates looking to improve support for CHWs through this pathway.
In a recent case study, community health representatives (CHRs) helped American Indian patients manage their health, improve health outcomes, and prevent chronic kidney disease (CKD). This report details how the results of the case study support the integration of CHRs into health care delivery and payment systems.
Webinars:
Webinar: The Path to Sustainable Financing for Community Health Workers
This webinar provided attendees with the opportunity to hear from CHWs and other stakeholders who shared their thoughts on the current financing landscape, including what works and where there may still be gaps in the public health workforce. The webinar also includes time for Q&A with attendees.
Webinar: Community Health Worker Impact Estimator Tool
This webinar teaches users how to best use the tools to convince decisions makers that CHWs can have a positive financial impact. Led by Katharine and her team, in this webinar you will:
- Get an in-depth overview of the childhood asthma and diabetes estimators.
- Learn how to customize the tools to get estimates on a wide range of budget, quality, and impact measures, including return on investment and social impact.
Webinar: Using Medicaid Managed Care Contracts to Support Community Health Workers (CHWs)
In this webinar, we:
- Provide an overview of how Medicaid-managed care can be used to sustainably fund CHWs.
- Provide examples of language from Medicaid-managed care contracts that include or support CHWs.
- Discuss considerations for CHWs and other advocates who want to use this pathway to establish sustainable funding.
Webinar: Using State Plan Amendments (SPAs) to Support Community Health Workers
In this webinar, advocates from California and Missouri discuss:
- The benefits of pursuing a CHW financing.
- How to combine a SPA with other approaches for more comprehensive financing.
- Lessons learned for successfully navigating the SPA process.