Delivery of Care

Dr. Fine joins Blackstone Valley Community Health Care

Former director of the R.I. Department of Health will serve in role of acting chief medical officer

Photo by Scott Kingsley

Dr. Michael Fine, former director of the R.I. Department of Health, has joined Blackstone Valley Community Health Care as acting chief medical officer.

By Richard Asinof
Posted 8/24/15
Dr. Michael Fine, the former director of the R.I. Department of Health, has taken a new position as acting chief medical officer at Blackstone Valley Community Health Care, helping that community health center to bring two new facilities and a new set of population health tools on line.
What is the role that community health centers will play in the future plans by the state to cut health care costs and provide better population health outcomes? And, what is the role that community health centers will play under the State Innovation Model, or SIM? Will the concept of Neighborhood Health Stations be included as part of the transformation plans? How will the development of Health Equity Zones now underway in 11 Rhode Island communities, focused on wellness and prevention in a community context, become part of the equation? Will the new population health tools being developed by Blackstone Valley create a more nimble approach?
All too often left out of the discussion about the economic equation on Rhode Island’s future is the role that people over 60 years of age can play in making the state more vital – as mentors, as collaborators, as innovators, as volunteers. There is a collective wisdom that exists in that bulging demographic known as Baby Boomers, and if Rhode Island were smarter, it would create the kinds of incentives to keep Rhode Islanders entering the world of Medicare and beyond involved in economic ecosystem. After all, many of these folks were the ones that were marginalized because of the high health care costs of keeping them on the company payroll in the first place. The decision by Blackstone Valley to hire Dr. Fine reflects a forward-thinking approach to how health care needs to change and to capture that wisdom.

PAWTUCKET – Blackstone Valley Community Health Care Center has hired Dr. Michael Fine, the former director of the R.I. Department of Health, to serve in the capacity of acting chief medical officer.

Fine described his new role in the context of Blackstone Valley’s continuing growth, including the community health center’s planned expansion at 1145 Main Street in Pawtucket. The plan is to turn the three-story structure into a satellite facility with 12,000 square feet of exam room space, doubling the exam room space at its 39 East St. facility, which opened in October of 2012. 

Blackstone Valley recently received a New Access Point Grant from the federal Health Resources Services Administration, a division of Health and Human Services, with the expectation that construction work remodeling the building at the new location will be completed by mid-December.

“We’ve served 15,000 distinct individual users in 2014, 1,800 more than in 2013, and that was a record-setting year,” Ray Lavoie, executive director of Blackstone Valley, told Convergence earlier this year.

Blackstone Valley is on a pace to exceed the record results of 2014 in 2015, according to Lavoie.

In terms of Blackstone Valley’s footprint, Lavoie continued, the community health center attracts patients from about 40 zip codes, including Providence. [See link to ConvergenceRI story below.]

Blackstone Valley also recently purchased the Notre Dame Ambulatory Center at 1,000 Broad St. in Central Falls from Memorial Hospital, and is expanding the facility to accommodate an additional 6,000 patients a year, more than doubling the current number of patients now being seen in Central Falls. The new facility will also include a new dental suite of offices. Another 11 clinicians are anticipated to be hired, including physicians, dentists, ob/gyn providers, and clinical social workers.

The new facility puts bricks and mortar on the concept of a Neighborhood Health Station in Central Falls. “The long-term vision for the building will be to create a place where 90 percent of the health and wellness of the needs of the community can be met,” Lavoie said at the time the purchase was announced. The partnership includes Memorial Hospital and the city of Central Falls. [See link to ConvergenceRI story below.]

Here is a brief interview by ConvergenceRI with Fine about his new role as acting chief medical officer at Blackstone Valley Community Health Care.

ConvergenceRI: Can you describe what your new role will be as acting chief medical officer?
FINE:
I’m joining a busy administrative team that is bringing two new sites and a new set of population health tools on line.

Medical directing means supporting the work of primary care providers, and recruiting new primary care providers to Pawtucket and Central Falls.

We hope to triple health care employment in Central Falls over the next few years, as we develop the capacity to care for the entire population of Central Falls in Central Falls, and significantly expand prevention, so that we bring recommended prevention to the entire population.

I’m also now the Health Policy Advisor to Mayor James Diossa of Central Falls. Having both roles allows [me to help] to develop new and exciting collaborations to make Central Falls and Pawtucket the healthiest places in Rhode Island.

ConvergenceRI: How will that help to advance the work in creating a Neighborhood Health Station in Central Falls?
FINE:
It lets me devote all my energy and attention to the opening of the Central Falls Neighborhood Health Station, developing the multi-disciplinary team, and proving that a culture of health in a place focused on health can be transformative.

ConvergenceRI: Will you be involved in helping to develop consistent metrics for health outcomes for community- and patient-centered health care?
FINE:
Meaningful metrics matter. I'll be arguing for a few meaningful metrics that have public health import, and that will let us deliver the best outcomes at the lowest cost.

ConvergenceRI: Will you be seeing patients, too?
FINE:
Eventually. It’s something I’m really looking forward to. It’s the best part. Patient care comes first. Listening matters.

ConvergenceRI: What is the role that you see community health centers playing in redefining the health care delivery system in Rhode Island?
FINE:
We have a medical services marketplace, which sometimes works as a wealth extraction system, not a health care system. Community health centers are the best place for us to start building a health care system for Rhode Island that finally delivers on the promise of a healthy Rhode Island at a cost we can afford.

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