BCCHC ACTIVITY REPORT
February 23, 2016

BCCHC director, Marsha McMurray-Avila, has been participating for several months in the work to provide community input into the process of developing the state's Health Systems Innovation initiative (also known as SIM). Several BCCHC meetings were devoted to this over the summer and fall last year. A draft of the proposed model has been posted at and everyone is encouraged to review it and make comments through the SurveyMonkey link also on that page. (Please note: The model included in the draft plan is described differently from what we discussed in our meetings, in particular the language/ terminology used to describe it is not the same as what was presented in the handouts at our meetings.)

Marsha has also been participating in the development of a proposal to the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare (CMS) to test an "Accountable Health Community" approach in the areas of Bernalillo County most impacted by health inequities caused by factors related to the social determinants of health. The lead on the application is Presbyterian Healthcare Services/Community Health, who would be providing backbone administrative support. UNM Health Sciences Center would serve as a major partner, building on the work they've been doing with CHWs in clinical settings. Multiple other partners are involved, either in supporting backbone functions , as clinical sites that will be screening for social determinants in their Medicaid/Medicare patients, or as community service partners who will be helping to provide services to meet the basic needs identified in the screening process. Our role as BCCHC would be to facilitate the consortium and advisory committee for the initiative, and to serve as the umbrella coalition, similar to our role with Healthy Here.

Healthy Here: Communities Leading Healthy Change
In addition to the ongoing organizational work of the various contractors for Healthy Here, three teams have been collaboratively working on Healthy Here objectives, with a fourth team about to be added. Each of these teams is coordinated by a Healthy Here staff person employed through Presbyterian Healthcare Services/ Community Health, as follows:

  • Natalie Donnelly has been added to the Healthy Here team at Presbyterian to coordinate all of the work related to healthy eating. She is facilitating the Mobile Market team as they continue planning for the second season of the Mobile Market scheduled to kick-off on June 4th at the SE Heights Clinic Health Fair in the International District (the health fair takes place on Texas SE between Central and Zuni). This next Mobile Market season will have expanded sites in the International District and the South Valley.
  • Natalie will also be facilitating a new Healthy Eating Workgroup that will begin meeting on February 26th to bring together all the different partners - beyond just the Mobile Market - who are involved in the healthy eating component of the Healthy Here work
  • The Active Living Workgroup - facilitated by Tatiana Falcón Rodríguez - includes partners involved in increasing opportunities for physical activity in the South Valley and International District. The recent focus has been a collaboration to submit comments on the draft Comp Plan for Albuquerque/Bernalillo County, focusing on reinforcing community health principlesthat are included in the plan and commenting on areas that need to be strengthened in order to support healthy communities.
  • Healthy Here partners, guided by Valerie Quintana, continue working with the new Wellness Referral Center, based at Adelante, to establish referral resources for providers to "prescribe" to their patients how to improve their health by taking classes to manage their chronic disease, learning more about eating and cooking more healthy foods, and taking advantage of opportunities for regular physical activity in their neighborhood. Valerie also continues working with a group of CHWs to strengthen linkages between clinical sites and community resources for healthy eating and active living.

SCALE - Spreading Community Accelerators through Learning & Evaluation

Four International District community members were contracted for short-term contracts to support Reyna Juarez and Bernadette Hardy, IDHCC contracted staff, in their efforts to develop activities to increase opportunities for physical activity in the International District. The team decided to pilot a 3-week dance event

to see what kind of community interest they could generate in dancing as a way to be active. As reported last month, the first two events were on Jan 16th and Jan 23rd at Cesar Chavez Community Center. The project - Un Paso a La Vez (One Step at a Time) - has consisted so far of a demonstration on Jan 16th of various forms of dance already taking place at La Mesa Elementary School (Fancy Shawl Dancers and La Mesa Mama Belly Dancers), as well as some instruction and a group round dance with the Little Rez Boys Drum Group. On Jan 23rd, Xian Bass provided instruction in hip-hop steps to an enthusiastic multi-generational group of about 20 people. The final event was on Saturday, Jan 30th, also at Cesar Chavez Community Center, with a review of the dance steps learned the previous week.
This pilot project is currently being evaluated to determine next steps, and to identify lessons learned as we work to implement community health improvement methodologies being learned through the SCALE grant.

As part of the larger 100 Million Healthier Lives initiative being promoted by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, our SCALE team, along with the other 20 pacesetter communities, will be focusing for the next few months on the metrics of community health improvement by setting and tracking quantitative goals throughout 2016.

Opioid Accountability Initiative
As mentioned last month, the Coordinating Committee for the Initiative decided to re-energize the work of the 4 Implementation Teams (now called Strategy Groups) by having each group establish specific targeted goals for 2016 that will be the focus of smaller Action Teams to support that work. Each Strategy Group will be engaging in a facilitated action planning session over the next couple of months to establish their priorities for 2016. The first of these was held with the Treatment Group on February 19th. The Prevention Group will meet on Friday, March 4th and the Law Enforcement/Criminal Justice Group on Friday, March 25th. The Narcan Group action planning session will be scheduled soon.

The Opioid Initiative is also looking at potential new funding to be able to hire an additional staff person who can work full-time on the initiative. A job posting will be available as soon as funding has been confirmed.

New Mexico Alliance of Health Councils (NMAHC)

NMAHC organized a Public Health Day at the Legislature on Wednesday, January 27, 2016, that was very successful with around 24 organizations sharing information on their work at tables in the Roundhouse. Applications for non-voting organizational memberships (beyond health councils) were passed out and it's hoped that expanded membership in NMAHC will bring in more visibility and more support for health councils.

Many thanks to those who contacted legislators to support the statewide health council funding. Unfortunately, the decline in oil and gas revenues to the State has meant that no new funding was available for distribution during the 2016 legislative session. We were not able to get any money added for health councils, in spite of approvals of the health council funding bills by both House and Senate committees.
Because of state revenue shortfalls, there were some across-the-board cuts made in the NM Department of Health budget, along with other state departments. Those cuts were general, and NMAHC is working with DOH staff to determine whether there will be impacts on the current annual health council funding of $395,000.All health councils will be notified as soon as more concrete information becomes available.