Bread for the City will launch an innovative, two-year “Food Home” pilot program to address food insecurity in the District, the organization announced today. The pilot is made possible through the Advancing Integrated Models initiative, a multi-site demonstration designed to promote innovative, person-centered strategies to improve care for adults and children with complex health and social needs. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Healthcare Strategies (CHCS), Bread for the City is proud to be one of the chosen sites.

The Food Home model mirrors the Medical Home model already in place at Bread for the City’s medical clinic, where patients can receive primary care, behavioral health, dental, and vision services in one location. The Food Home model will likewise allow a pilot group of clients to receive enough food for the month in one location, eliminating the need to travel to multiple food pantries to meet their monthly needs. 

“This pilot program will allow us to streamline the process of food delivery to the clients we serve,” said Stacey Johnson, Bread for the City’s Resource Systems Specialist. “We know that taking away the stress of scrambling to put food on the table each month will increase our clients’ health and well-being, and allow them to spend more time focusing on other areas of life.”

A group of clients who currently use both the medical clinic and food pantry will be selected for the two-year pilot. Bread for the City will conduct regular check-ins to assess client levels of food security and corresponding improvements in health metrics, such as stress levels.

D.C. PACT and the District of Columbia Department of Health Care Finance are collaborators for the pilot. 

This national initiative will accelerate opportunities to align best practice approaches in care delivery for children and adults with complex health and/or social needs, including: (1) complex care management; (2) trauma-informed care; (3) physical and behavioral health integration; and (4) mechanisms to address health-related social needs. While many organizations have implemented one or more of these strategies, few have adopted all and even fewer have effectively aligned these efforts internally or externally with community partners. 

“There is enormous energy across the complex care field to implement various strategies to improve health and social service delivery for people with complex needs; however, these strategies are typically siloed in isolated programs,” said Allison Hamblin, MSPH, president and chief executive officer at CHCS.  “Advancing Integrated Models seeks to promote greater integration of these approaches and create sustainable partnerships and financing pathways to support this work.”   

Bread for the City was competitively selected to participate in the initiative, along with seven additional programs. Each pilot site offers clearly defined opportunities to build on existing pioneering care models and meaningfully involve consumers in improving care delivery. Sites will collaborate with Medicaid partners to identify supportive payment models for their planned approach. Additional programs are: Center for the Urban Child and Healthy Family at Boston Medical Center, Boston, MA; Denver Health, Denver, CO; Hill Country Health and Wellness Center, Round Mountain and Redding, CA; Johns Hopkins HealthCare, Baltimore, MD; Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY; OneCare Vermont, Vermont; and Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services, Philadelphia, PA. 

“These innovators in the field are truly at the cutting edge of person-centered care for adults and children with complex needs,” said Susan Mende, MPH, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “AIM is providing an exciting opportunity to build on their efforts and support a vision for meaningful health system transformation to improve health outcomes.” 

Over two years, each site will receive tailored technical assistance and access to national subject matter experts and participate in a peer learning collaborative to accelerate solutions across sites. Throughout the initiative, CHCS will identity and share lessons and tools from the sites’ experiences to help stakeholders across the nation increase the effectiveness of integrated care models. Look for more information at www.chcs.org.