For Community Health Systems, Inc., a midsize health center in Southern California, joining Health Center Partners of Southern California was a game changer.
Delta Center California was a three-year initiative funded by the California Health Care Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that brought together behavioral health and primary care leaders to accelerate care improvement and integration through policy and practice change. This piece captures some of the key context and shares learnings from the implementation of this state-wide behavioral health and primary care collaborative over the past three years.
Community Health Center Network (CHCN) partnered with two of its standing health centers, LifeLong Medical Care and Axis Community Health, to participate in the Delta Center California Learning Laboratory. Over the last two years, this team of behavioral health leadership, providers, and program management staff have worked to assess and better understand racial, ethnic and language disparities in behavioral health screening, referral, and engagement at Axis and LifeLong; create more effective services across racial and ethnic groups; and enhance their behavioral health registry that includes a data dashboard.
As the first and only health center-led Medicare Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in California, and one of a growing number of provider-led safety-net ACOs nationwide, Redwood Community Care Organization (RCCO) is an example of an early foray into accountable care in the safety net.