UIC and OSF HealthCare award inaugural CHA Grants
UIC is partnering with Peoria, Illinois-based OSF HealthCare to award eight grants totaling more than $700,000 to support projects that remove barriers to care, particularly in low-income, under-resourced communities; enhance health and wellness education, and leverage technology to improve training and community outreach.
These are the first-ever grants awarded under the Community Health Advocacy (CHA) program. OSF HealthCare has committed $1 million for each of the next five years and UIC will match the OSF gift with a mix of royalty income and in-kind contributions to provide about $2 million in grants annually to support multidisciplinary projects.
The efforts will leverage grants and additional resources available from local, state and federal dollars focused on improving health equity.
Quote from Vice Chancellor TJ Augustine Heading link
We were thrilled to see so many impressive projects proposed by the teams of UIC researchers and OSF clinicians. This first round of CHA funding is just the start of an impactful partnership between UIC and OSF that will help improve the health and wellness of urban communities.
| Vice Chancellor for Innovation
Dr. John Vozenilek giving an overview of CHA program Heading link
“These programs are under development to provide new prototypes to do better outreach to our communities – to serve people where they are with their current medical conditions and to really advance that care,” said Dr. John Vozenilek, vice president and chief medical officer, OSF Innovation an Digital Health. “Our focus is on health care outcomes, but we’re also emphasizing equity and ensuring every patient has the advantage of a thorough diagnosis, excellent treatment and good information about ways of managing their health.”
Projects like the one led by Dr. Faria Munir, Clinical Assistant Professor in the UIC College of Pharmacy, and Scott Barrows, who directs the OSF Innovation Design Lab, are removing social barriers that lead to poor health for residents in the Chicago metro area. Their project will use tablets embedded in kiosks at three homeless shelters to help with prescription drug management as well as offer connections to local resources. Read the full story here.
A full list of grant awards and projects is available on the CHA website.