the entire population of a city can be cared for

health care
Saturday
Posted Oct 8, 2016 at 12:01 AM
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By Lynn Arditi
Journal staff writer

CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — Construction will begin Saturday on a new $15-million community health center projected to more than double the number of residents served in Rhode Island’s smallest and poorest city.

The Blackstone Valley Community Health Care's planned 47,000-square-foot building on Broad Street is part of a strategy under a new Medicaid expansion initiative to attract more patients and improve health outcomes for the state’s poorest residents.

The “neighborhood health station” on Broad Street, scheduled to be completed in spring 2018, will centralize services under one roof and add a new dental clinic and on-site pharmacy. The center will offer same-day sick appointments and extended hours (from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.) on weekdays as well as weekend hours.

“Our mission is to create a healthy community,” said Raymond Lavoie, executive director of Blackstone Valley Community Health Care. “With convenient access and comprehensive, professional and culturally sensitive services, we’re hoping to become an essential partner in good health to a new generation of residents of this city.”

The investment is expected to reduce the need for costly emergency department visits and hospitalizations which, officials say, should help lower insurance premiums — a major concern in the business community, according to a fact sheet about the project.

The Blackstone Valley health center is among the first in Rhode Island to participate in a new payment model for state Medicaid providers created under the Affordable Care Act. The model is designed to save money and improve health outcomes. It attempts to hold provider organizations responsible for care and costs of specific populations by tying payment incentives to performance on care quality and savings.

“To generate savings and share in those savings — that’s the driving factor,’’ Lavoie said. “That’s how we know that we’ll be able to pay the mortgage.”

Funding for the project includes a $1-million federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration. The financing includes $11.45 million in federal new market tax credits and tax-exempt bonds. These tax credits are typically offered to private investors and banks to finance health centers, charter schools and other economic development projects in low-income communities.

In this 1-square-mile city, the health-care needs loom large. Central Falls’ teen birth rate is nearly four-times the statewide average, according to Rhode Island Kids Count. The rates for women with delayed prenatal care, infants born with a low birthweight and children hospitalized for asthma all exceed the statewide average.

The effort to address the city’s health-care needs began in 2013, a year after the city emerged from bankruptcy. The state Health Department convened a health assessment of the city. Community and church leaders, as well as local health-care providers, met with about 100 residents, according to a statement about the project. One of the health priorities identified during the forum was improving access to primary care.

The Blackstone Valley center currently serves about 40 percent of the city’s population at three separate sites. The goal is to add 10,000 new patients within four years, Lavoie said, and care for 90 percent of the city’s residents

“This is the only place that I know of where the entire population of a city can be cared for by a single clinical enterprise,” Dr. Michael Fine, former director of the Health Department, said in an interview. Fine, who serves as the health center’s senior clinical population health officer, said the project offers “huge population health and public health opportunities.”

Fine, who also serves as Central Falls’ health policy adviser, said the center’s electronic medical records will enable providers to target specific health risks in the city, such as cigarette smoking, and focus outreach efforts to bring those people into the clinic.

The new center will be on land directly behind the Notre Dame Express Health Care building at 1000 Broad St., which the health center purchased, along with the land, in September 2015 from Memorial Hospital.

Once built, officials plan to close the aging Notre Dame building as well as the Chestnut Street site and move those patients into the new center. Over the next few years, the center plans to add 75 new staff, including 11 clinical staff such as doctors, dentists, nurses and social workers.

Funding for the project also includes:

* $2 million from the Blackstone Valley Community Health Care

* $300,000 from The Delta Dental of Rhode Island Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation

* $250,000 from the Champlin Foundation

* $50,000 from Rhode Island Group Health Association Foundation Fund

* $50,000 from the City of Central Falls

The project is being build by ED Rowse Architects Inc. of East Providence.

—larditi@providencejournal.com

On Twitter: @LynnArditi