Community Health Entrepreneur Challenge

The Community Health Entrepreneur Challenge is part of a multi-year, multi-million-dollar initiative launched in 2023 in collaboration with UnitedHealthcare Community & State, which supports health centers in cultivating innovative solutions for complex problems that affect the health and wellbeing of communities.

Phase 2: 2024-2025 Community Health Entrepreneur Challenge 

ACH announced the second round of grant opportunities for the Community Health Entrepreneur Challenge which closed on July 29, 2024. Read the press release.

Building upon the successes of its first year of implementation, ACH launched ‘seed funding’ for two ACH members engaged in applying emerging technologies and data capacity initiatives to their community health centers (CHCs) with the goal of improving health outcomes for patients, greater efficiencies, and long-term savings. The selected winners will receive $100,000 each to implement the following initiatives:

• Cherokee Health Systems (CHS), located in Tennessee: CHS proposes applying a data-driven and precision medicine approach to reducing disparities in care. CHS has developed the first stage of a Health Equity Dashboard that tracks UDS metrics based on identity markers, and this project will allow them to move to the next level of clinical informatics to create tailored dashboards for each clinic site, with links to reports of patient-level data. These analytics will be used by care coordinators for outreach and engagement, as well as clinical teams to tailor clinical interventions to target gaps in care.
• Lone Star Circle of Care (LSCC) located in Texas: LSCC’s Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation for Financial and Clinical Health program will address a multitude of challenges related to medical coding and billing, exacerbated by the increasing documentation requirements of value-based care, recent technological transitions, and workforce shortages. These challenges collectively contribute to significant operational inefficiencies, provider and staff burnout, and compromised financial performance, necessitating the development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted medical coding and billing software.

Phase 1: 2023-2024 Community Health Entrepreneur Challenge

A selection committee of policy, health care, and social service thought leaders reviewed dozens of submissions and identified five awardees who received $500,000 grants. They represent some of the nation’s largest FQHCs, with each organization serving more than 40,000 patients annually and employing over 300 full-time employees. The initiatives receiving funding will address the needs of underserved populations in a variety of rural and urban regions across the country.

The five Community Health Entrepreneurship Challenge awardees and their initiatives are:

• Columbia Basin Health Association (CBHA) located in Washington: In response to the lack of easy access to behavioral health services and the needs in their local school districts, CBHA is developing a HIPAA-compliant ChatBot that provides on-demand behavioral health care. Using a QR code, students will be able to schedule and attend behavioral telehealth appointments with CBHA providers using their personal mobile devices. Read more
• Lowell Community Health Center (Lowell CHC) located in Massachusetts: The Lowell CHC Health Justice Learning Institute will serve as a community-based, practitioner-led, anti-racist experiential training facility for a broad range of health professionals, anchored by a family medicine residency program. The Institute builds on decades of intentional efforts by Lowell CHC to advance health justice and aims to transform the way health centers across the nation teach and prepare health care professionals. Read more
• Mariposa Community Health Center (Mariposa) located in Arizona: To improve patient care, Mariposa will implement machine learning and artificial intelligence through a predictive modeling approach that will enable the organization to make proactive, predictive decisions based on data science. Leveraging data in this manner will allow providers to make more informed clinical decisions, empower executive management to make data-based decisions on value-based contracts, achieve clinical quality goals, address health equity and bias, and improve patient outcomes. Read more
• Morris Heights Health Center (MHHC) located in New York: Age Well is a two-year pilot program that aims to improve the quality of life and health outcomes of MHHC’s 65+ population by increasing their access and connection to clinical and non-clinical services. Through patient-centric and comprehensive engagement and outreach strategies, this unique and replicable program aims to offer health centers a new approach to serving older populations. Read more
• Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation (MCHC) located in Kentucky: MCHC’s RAISE program helps employees reach educational goals and advance their careers through apprenticeship pathways and advanced degree programs. By addressing barriers to continuing education and leveraging partnerships with local higher education institutions, RAISE is a crucial tool to improve employee satisfaction and retention, as well as patient satisfaction. Read more

Grantees of phase 1 of the Community Health Entrepreneur Challenge received $500,000 over two years to develop and implement their proposed concepts along with technical support in the areas of model/intervention design, evaluation, data analytics, policy analysis, and sustainability planning.

A special thanks to: