Baystate – Mary Lane Seeks Community Health Proposals

WARE — Baystate Mary Lane Hospital (BMLH) has released a request for proposals (RFP) for community health initiatives from area not-for profit organizations that can offer innovative approaches to addressing unmet health needs in the Quaboag Hills Region of Hampshire, Hampden, and Worcester counties.

The hospital’s Community Benefit Advisory Council, which includes area educators, health and human-service providers, and others who are actively engaged in community health-improvement efforts, worked together with hospital staff to prioritize unmet health needs identified in the hospital’s community health needs assessment that was completed last spring.

A total of $150,000 in funding, to be spent over three to five years for BMLH community health initiatives, was made available by Baystate Medical Center (BMC) as part of the Mass. Department of Public Health’s determination-of-need process related to capital expenditures for BMC’s new Emergency Department in Springfield. BMLH has approved up to $50,000 of these funds to be awarded in 2014 for the purpose of addressing priority health needs.

To qualify, grant proposals must address one of the following BMLH priority health needs, which include diet and exercise-related diseases and mortality; high rates of alcohol, tobacco, and drug use; and lack of access to mental-health services and poor mental-health status.

The deadline for grant proposals is Nov. 1. Selected grantees will be notified no later than Dec. 2. For more information, contact Kimberly Duquette at kimberly.duquette@baystatehealth.org or call (413) 967-2179.