Health Foundation of South Florida Invests in Monroe County Health Collaborative

Three Monroe County non-profit health centers have joined forces to create a health care collaborative with the goal of increasing access to and expanding primary care for low-income children, pregnant women and adults. The new partnership, made possible by a nearly $1 million grant from the Health Foundation of South Florida, will also help the health centers coordinate services so that patients are better served.

Keys AHEC Health Centers, Good Health Clinic, and Womankind will be working closely together to deliver a coordinated health services plan that better serves low income patients.

“Efforts in developing this plan will have a tremendous impact on access to primary, specialty and ancillary care services for patients.   Patients will be able to better manage and understand available health care resources to them and honestly it’s about time” stated Michael Cunningham, CEO of Keys AHEC.

Health Foundation of South Florida’s leadership team and board were pleased to see this collaboration among agencies and recognizes it as a model program.  Steven E. Marcus, President and CEO of Health Foundation of South Florida added “One of our principal strategies as a foundation is bringing together partners and fostering collaboration from across communities and sectors to find innovative, impactful ways of addressing our most entrenched health challenges. The Monroe County collaborative is a wonderful example of this, one that demonstrates that, by joining forces, we can accomplish far more than we would individually.”

“Ensuring healthcare access for our low-income and working class is essential to maintaining a healthy, productive community here in the Florida Keys. This collaborative work is a major step in facilitating comprehensive access for all our residents from Key Largo to Key West.” stated Kate Banick, Executive Director of Good Health Clinic.

Efforts will result in a county-wide coordinated network of care for the uninsured and the medically underserved, where providers will work more closely together to achieve efficiencies both for patients and for their operations by creating interoperability among providers.  Executive director of Womankind, Cali Roberts is excited for the progress in providing safety-net services.

“Our agencies have always been supportive of one another and worked closely side-by-side. The opportunity to formalize overlapping services will be a tangible benefit to the underserved populations in the Keys.”

The mission of Health Foundation of South Florida is to invest in and be a catalyst for collaborations, policy and systems change that improves the health of South Florida communities, with a focus on vulnerable, low to moderate income populations. Established in 1993, the nonprofit foundation has awarded over $131 million to nonprofits providing programs and services in Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties. For more information, visit hfsf.org and follow @HealthSFL.