Delta Center for a Thriving Safety Net

Community health centers, which serve over 27 million people, and community behavioral health providers, which serve over 10 million people, are facing increasing pressure to move towards models of care and payment that reward value over volume. Safety-net primary care and behavioral health providers are key sectors for a reformed delivery system yet often lack the technical and change management capacity to implement and sustain change. Participation in population-based payment arrangements in the safety net is still nascent—many providers face challenges in building the necessary infrastructure and navigating an evolving payment environment.

To address this need, JSI was chosen by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to work in collaboration with the MacColl Center for Health Care Innovation at Kaiser Permanente (MacColl), and the Center for Care Innovations (CCI) to launch The Delta Center for a Thriving Safety Net, a national collaborative that aims to inspire innovation and change in value-based care and payment, both through policy and practice. This partnership combines strengths in policy and value-based payment in the safety net, delivery system transformation in ambulatory care settings, and sustainable change in organizations. The Delta Center also brings together the National Association for Community Health Centers (NACHC) and the National Council for Behavioral Health (National Council), marking their first large-scale collaboration in this area.

The Delta Center will provide technical assistance to primary care and behavioral health state associations to advance value-based payment and care. As the first national center to focus exclusively on transforming payment and care for ambulatory primary care and behavioral health services, the Delta Center will:

• Build internal capacity of state associations in strategy development, learning organization practices, and sustainability planning
• Build policy and advocacy capacity to advance state-level value-based payment and care;
• Foster state- and national-level collaboration between primary care and behavioral health;
• Build capacity of state associations to provide training and technical assistance to advance provider-level value-based payment and care.

This multi-pronged approach will build the knowledge, resources, and relationships of state and national organizations to shape and respond to policy change and opportunities in the safety net.