Previous Projects & Programs

  • The Breast Test
    JHF has been a champion for early detection and prevention of breast cancer. The Breast Test was a breast cancer detection, screening, and outreach program. The Foundation partnered with WQED-TV to air a one-hour program on public television stations across Pennsylvania, which taught thousands of women about the importance of early detection, screening methods, and treatment options.

    The Breast Test Initiative was a catalyst for the Foundation's three-year support for the National Council of Jewish Women to start the "Race for the Cure" in 1993. It has become an annual Mother's Day tradition, attracting more than 35,000 participants and raising over $2 million annually.

  • Coordinated Care Network
    The Coordinated Care Network (CCN) is a unique partnership of 12 area agencies with a proven track record of service to the uninsured and underserved populations of Allegheny County. Network partners form a collaboration of community-based medical, psychological, and social service agencies. They provide a health and wellness safety net for the underserved through disease management, case management, and organizational protocols with a client focus. CCN's success has led to integrated services, increased effectiveness, and a managed-care negotiating network with viable means of financing and delivering care to the uninsured. Learn more at http://www.coordinatedcarenetwork.org/
  • COVID-19 Consortium
    The Southwest PA COVID-19 Consortium launched in May 2020 as the first regional consortium to support contact tracing in the Commonwealth with funding from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation. In collaboration with the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation mobilized the consortium’s members and helped to coordinate their work. The consortium monitored the number of needed vs. available contact tracers in the region, assisted recruitment of contact tracers, assured that specialized training is available for the contact tracers, disseminated resources, and mobilized COVID-19 communication campaigns. The consortium was made up of over 100 members, which included community-based organizations, health organizations, counties, and social service agencies, among others.
  • Customer Service Evaluations
    This program provided Jewish community organizations with feedback from their constituencies. A tailored survey determined overall levels of satisfaction, evaluated perceived gaps in service, and allowed for collaborative planning of solutions and programs.
  • Educational Support and Clinical Coaching Program
    The Educational Support and Clinical Coaching Program (ESCCP) offered webinars, guidance, training and resources to personal care homes and assisted living facilities. In a partnership, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, and seven Pennsylvania health systems launched the program in April 2020 to advance senior care and address challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. JHF served as the convener, facilitator and core faculty for ESCCP, supplemented by clinical and service provider partners.
  • Fine Awards for Teamwork Excellence in Health Care
    Sponsored by The Fine Foundation and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF), the Fine Awards recognized and rewarded healthcare teams in western Pennsylvania who achieved significant quality improvements. An independent panel of regional and national experts selected winners demonstrating a commitment to delivering safe, efficient, and patient-centered care.
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  • Full Court Press
    In 2020, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) embarked on a new one-year initiative, called JHF’s Full Court Press, to pursue three policy goals: establishing a National Patient Safety Board, creating a comprehensive approach to pregnancy and postpartum care, and developing and testing new models for senior residential living. JHF formed three new Full Court Press Teams with Board members around these three areas and held regular virtual meetings with guest experts from across the country to advance these policy aspirations.
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  • High Tech + High Touch Health Care
    Launched in 2021, the High Tech + High Touch Health Care mini series focused on how technology can enable high touch care through the Liftoff PGH Regional Agenda’s six key objectives for health innovation. The Pittsburgh Technology Council and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation co-hosted the companion series. Read more »
  • HPV Vaccination Initiative
    The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine represents a safe, effective cancer prevention tool, but vaccination rates remain unacceptably low. Just 60% of U.S. females age 13-17 had initiated the vaccine series in 2015, and just 52% of males (according to the CDC’s National Immunization Teen Survey). JHF, with the support of an impressive advisory committee, has developed a public health campaign to increase uptake in HPV vaccination in our region. The campaign includes outreach and education sessions in practices, community organizations, and schools; and toolkits and communications materials for providers, parents, and teens. For more information, visit hpvpittsburgh.org.
  • Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers
    The Jewish obligation to visit the sick inspired JHF to create Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers of Southwestern Pennsylvania, a network of churches and synagogues that mobilizes and trains volunteers to reach out to the isolated elderly of their congregations with companionship and assistance in daily living.
  • Jewish Genetic Diseases
    JHF is the fiscal agent for the Pittsburgh Victor Center, an affiliate of the Einstein Victor Center for the Prevention of Jewish Genetic Diseases in Philadelphia. The Center's mission is to educate the Pittsburgh community about Ashkenazi Jewish genetic diseases and ensure access to screening for Jewish genetic diseases in order to provide individuals with the greatest number of options.
  • Liftoff PGH
    Liftoff PGH was a initiative that inspired a regional journey to the frontiers of healthcare technology and innovation. Liftoff PGH launched Pittsburgh's first healthcare innovation conference in December 2020, including two weeks of on-demand content, culminating in a live two-day broadcast featuring exhilarating speaker presentations, panel discussions, and workshops. The project continued into 2021 with a partnership with the Pittsburgh Technology Council on the High Tech + High Touch Health Care series and with launching the inaugural Young Innovators Healthcare Fellowship. Liftoff PGH sparked collaborations between the region’s boldest innovators and helped propel Pittsburgh deeper into healthcare innovation. 
  • Long-Term Care Champions

    The Long-Term Care Champion program was designed to enhance the clinical, communication, and data-tracking skills of front line workers in skilled nursing facilities in order to reduce hospital readmissions among their increasingly frail, chronically ill residents.

  • Medical Centralized Information and Coordination Project

    As government institutions transitioned into providing the new Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan, it was important that residents who previously relied on Medicare and Medicaid would continue to receive the benefits to which they were entitled. This program offered a transitional safety net, providing individuals in Allegheny County with all the information necessary to help them choose the prescription plans that were right for them, and to ensure that this information was distributed in a timely manner.

  • Operation KidShot

    In response to eight children in Philadelphia dying during a measles outbreak, JHF, the Rotary Club of Pittsburgh, and United Way undertook Operation KidShot in 1992, a project to immunize children in southwestern Pennsylvania against preventable childhood diseases, and to link families to sources of health care. Nearly 6,000 children were immunized as a result of Operation KidShot, which also helped pass a state law that requires all health insurers to cover childhood immunizations. In 1992, the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Connaught Laboratories, Inc. honored JHF with the Immunization Award for Operation KidShot.

  • Patient-Centered Practice Transformation
    With an in-depth understanding of best practices for chronic disease management and quality improvement, PRHI is able to provide educational resources, tools, and technical assistance to clinicians through a variety of learning programs. For example, PRHI served as faculty for the NRHI High-Value Care Support and Alignment Network (SAN) in CMS’s Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative (TCPI), with a focus on behavioral health integration, quality improvement, care management, motivational interviewing, advanced care planning, and end of life.
  • Perfecting Chronic Care

    The UPMC St. Margaret Lawrenceville Family Health Center has restructured the way it cares for patients with diabetes and depression. The Center's current care program offers a community-based demonstration of Perfecting Patient Care principles. Redesigned specifically according to the needs of patients, the chronic care program works to improve clinical outcomes, improve the efficiency of care, and increase worker satisfaction.

  • Pittsburgh Elderhostel

    Based on a larger national program of the same name, Elderhostel gives seniors opportunities for learning, social and cultural engagement, and community involvement. A network of community organizations, including the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, ensures the success of this program by adapting current cultural, social, and civic institutions to suit the needs and perspectives of active seniors.

  • Pittsburgh Health Collaborative

    The goal of this initiative is create to a network of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) in the Pittsburgh region that will work together to participate in the Bureau of Primary Care Health Collaborative on Chronic Disease. This regional collaborative uses education, information sharing, and a community-based, grass-roots approach to redesigning and constantly working to improve care. The Jewish Healthcare Foundation provided a start-up grant for planning and structural phases of the project in the hope that it will develop an evidence-based model of care whose success can be demonstrated and replicated on a national level.

  • RAVEN (Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations using Evidence-based interventions for Nursing Facility Residents)
    A Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)-funded initiative, RAVEN was designed to improve nursing facility resident outcomes; improve the transitions between hospitals and nursing facilities; and reduce overall health spending while ensuring access to care and choice of providers among nursing facility residents in western Pennsylvania. UPMC served as the project lead, and JHF served as the lead educator.
  • Regional Congregate Care Assistance Teams
    In 2021, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation served as lead educator in the Regional Congregate Care Assistance Teams (RCAT), a more limited version of the Regional Response Health Collaboratives Program (RRHCP) that provided COVID-19 outbreak support to long-term care facilities. JHF conducted statewide webinars for personal care homes and assisted living facilities, focusing on improving campaigns and uptake for staff vaccinations/reducing vaccine hesitancy.
  • Regional Response Health Collaboratives Program
    In 2020, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation served as a lead educator for the Regional Response Health Collaboratives Program (RRHCP), a partnership Pennsylvania launched to support long-term care residents and their caregivers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The RRHCP was a partnership between the PA Department of Human Services, the PA Department of Health, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and key healthcare organizations and health systems across the Commonwealth. As a lead educator, JHF hosted educational webinars for frontline workers and administrators within over 1,800 personal care, assisted living and skilled nursing facilities throughout the Commonwealth; created an online community through the Tomorrow's HealthCare TM platform; created resources online and real time opportunities for RRHCP field staff from across the commonwealth to learn from each other; and developed toolkits to help facilities become more self-sufficient once the RRHCP ended.
  • Reinvesting in Health
    The Reinvesting in Health Initiative aims to remove unnecessary services and pay for what matters, with a focus on perinatal care. The initiative is funded by the Jewish Healthcare Foundation with a $600,000 grant from December 2017 to December 2020, and supported by PRHI. To remove unnecessary services and reinvest in what matters to the mom and baby, the Reinvesting in Health Initiative’s strategy includes testing bundled payment models, adopting Choosing Wisely® guidelines, and engaging purchasers to support these efforts with the leadership of the payers and providers. Bundled payments allow providers to remove unnecessary services based on the Choosing Wisely® guidelines and re-configure team roles and services based on best practices and the patients’ needs.
  • The Squirrel Hill Food Pantry

    The Squirrel Hill Food Pantry is the only Food Bank Program in Western Pennsylvania that provides a full array of kosher foods. It began as a response to the needs of the poor and hungry, as identified by the Healthy Jewish Community Project and several follow-up studies. In addition to distributing food to immigrants, the elderly, and the working poor, the small staff and a large number of dedicated volunteers also provide social support services for families in need.

  • Virtual Senior Academy
    In August of 2017, JHF launched the Virtual Senior Academy. The Virtual Senior Academy is a platform that connects older adults in the Pittsburgh region through interactive courses online that cover topics including health and wellness, technology, book clubs, arts and music, history, current events, and much more. Class facilitators are community members who want to share their passion and knowledge with other Pittsburghers.  Beginning in 2020, the Virtual Senior Academy transitioned to operation by the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh. If you want to share your skills and knowledge, contact help@virtualsenioracademy.org.
  • Working Hearts®

    The need was great. One out of three women in the United States was affected by heart disease. Yet when asked about their greatest health risks, heart disease was not at the top of the list for most women. Unwilling to accept this statistic, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation provided seed funding to launch Working Hearts®, running from 2002-2007.

    Working Hearts® grew quickly to become a coalition of more than 70 community organizations dedicated to the credo "Strong Women/Strong Hearts." The plan was to get women to know their numbers (body mass index-BMI, cholesterol, glucose and blood pressure) and to realize that making incremental changes in their lifestyles could greatly affect their risk for developing heart disease. Building on success, Working Hearts® expanded its mission in 2005 to address the needs of working-age men and women because we believe that an informed employee can be a "well" employee.

    We thank the coalition who worked with us to spread the word and helped the community adopt a healthier lifestyle. If you would like more information about heart disease, please visit the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.

  • Medical Assistant Champions Program

    The Medical Assistant Champions program is designed to equip medical assistants with the skills and knowledge they need to take on significantly more responsibility for patient care, thus reducing the burden on physicians and other members of the care team.

  • Primary Care Resource Center

    As primary investigator, PRHI led a three-year, $10.4 million Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) project from 2013 to 2015 which sought to show that a hospital-based support hub—called a Primary Care Resource Center (PCRC)—staffed by nurse care managers, a pharmacist, and an administrative assistant with full access to their institution’s array of specialty services, could improve care for patients with three common chronic illnesses. A network of six independent regional hospitals adopted the PCRC model, which is based on a PRHI-developed prototype that was piloted at Monongahela Valley Hospital. The care teams worked to improve patient care and reduce total cost of care for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary lung disease (COPD), congestive heart failure (CHF), and/or acute myocardial infarction (AMI).

    PRHI’s internal evaluation of the nearly 9,000 patients seen at the PCRCs shows that average 30-day readmissions dropped by 25% and 90-day total cost of care declined by $1,000 per patient.

     

  • REACH (Regional Extension and Assistance Center for Health Information Technology)

    PRHI was a key player in the Pennsylvania Regional Extension Center program established by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009. Through PA REACH, PRHI provided assistance, quality improvement training, workflow redesign, and information on best practices for implementing and optimizing the use of electronic health record technology to improve the quality and value of health care. At the project's conclusion, 860 providers were assisted across 340 sites; 99% of those providers were using EHRs; and 90% have attained Meaningful Use.

  • COMPASS (Care of Mental, Physical, and Substance Use Syndromes)

    PRHI was one of eight partners on the three-year, $18 million COMPASS project, which was funded by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) and led by the Institute of Clinical Systems Improvement. COMPASS helped primary care practices in seven different states to treat adult patients with depression together with cardiovascular disease and/or diabetes. PRHI was responsible for project management, practice recruitment, training and coaching, implementation, community engagement, and sustainability in Pennsylvania. PRHI enrolled the second‐highest number of patients (760) among COMPASS partners from 2013 to 2015.

    COMPASS demonstrated that screening and treating patients for depression with an expanded primary care team, including a care manager and consulting psychiatrist, can improve outcomes for patients. For the Pennsylvania COMPASS patients who had an uncontrolled disease at enrollment, 44% achieved depression remission or response. Twenty-three percent controlled previously high blood sugar, and 50% achieved blood pressure control.

  • Community Health Workers Champions

    The Community Health Workers (CHW) Champions program provided training and coaching to 15 staff members from Community LIFE (Living Independently for Elders) and LIFE Pittsburgh who provide support in seniors’ homes. The goal of the program, held from 2016 to 2017, was to develop and trial a curriculum with these Champions to strengthen organizational and family communication strategies, improve CHW skills in health monitoring and early identification of problems, interact compassionately with seniors experiencing cognitive or mental health issues, and to create connections and implement interventions that promote optimum health and maximize independence for seniors.

  • Tomorrow's HealthCare TM

    Tomorrow's HealthCare TM is PRHI's web-based Quality Improvement tool intended for healthcare executives and managers to lead sustained and rapid corrective action within frontline care teams.

    Read more about Tomorrow's HealthCare TM

  • Young Innovators Healthcare Fellowship
    The Young Innovators Healthcare Fellowship is an eight-week experience for high schoolers in the Pittsburgh region to explore healthcare careers and design technology solutions to a current healthcare problem. This fellowship provides students with a collaborative and creative environment to gain entrepreneurial, solution-oriented thinking skills; engage with young professional mentors to learn about diverse careers in health; learn about the role of technology & innovation in rethinking health care; and collaborate with peers to design an innovative solution. Sponsors of the inaugural Young Innovators Healthcare Fellowship were The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and The Grable Foundation. 

    Read more about the Young Innovators Fellowship