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What is the Rural Community Health Improvement Partnership (R-CHIP) Initiative?

Overview

The R-CHIP model addresses health-related social needs by fostering multi-sector community partnerships in rural Maine. It integrates healthcare, social services, and public health systems to expand access, improve health outcomes, and reduce care costs.

Building the Foundation

Funded by a federal grant from the CDC, from March 2023 to November 2024, demonstration sites in Northern Maine (Aroostook County Health Improvement Partnership, A-CHIP), Central Maine (Somerset and Kennebec Counties Community Partnership, SKCCP), and DownEast Maine (DownEast Housing Collaborative, DHC) identified barriers to accessing essential health services and priority health-related social needs. Each site established governance structures and developed strategies to tackle priority local needs, such as: systems-level change, lack of transportation, housing insecurity, and cross-sector collaboration. MCD Global Health provided technical assistance, supporting a peer learning network, project planning, an independent evaluation, and funding efforts.

Sustaining Progress

Each of the demonstration sites has established a regional partnership infrastructure, has strong local leadership and community engagement, and has conducted robust readiness assessments to identify priority local and regional community and health system needs and developed priority focus areas. While each of the sites is actively soliciting funding for programmatic activities, "core infrastructure" funding is needed to sustain the “hub” infrastructure of the three individual partnerships and the Technical Assistance Hub. This "core infrastructure" funding will accelerate dissemination and replication of the R-CHIP model to other rural regions and communities in Maine.

Accomplishments

• Established community partnership
• Conducted community readiness assessments
• Identified priority focus area(s)
• Sought programmatic grant funding (ongoing)
• Established Peer Learning Group

Focus Areas

• A-CHIP: expand and improve healthcare-related access to transportation and social connectedness and belonging.
• DHC: expand and improve access to and availability of emergency housing, supportive housing, low-income housing, and moderate-income housing and other related HRSNs.
• SKCCP: expand and improve cross-sector integration, collaboration, and community voice.
• Technical Assistance Hub: provide customized assistance and training, evaluation, and quality improvement; support dissemination and replication of the R-CHIP model.