COVID Response Strategy Approved by Board

I’ll never forget when I heard that they were canceling the NBA season for COVID. I literally couldn’t fathom a disease spreading so fast we canceled sports. Now twelve months later, I remain stunned at how profoundly COVID has changed how we work, interact and even get our groceries.

This past year has provided BHT with an opportunity to grow in many ways. We’ve deepened our organizational and personal equity journey. We’ve slowed down some of the work and accelerated other parts. We try to ask ourselves hard questions about creating value, our role, building capacity, and where we should just push out our funds and let partners do the work. We’ve been privileged to see firsthand how our community has come together. The number of partners that have stepped forward to lead has been inspiring. I can’t help but heap praise on CHAS, NAACP, and our rural health departments for continuously answering the call of what needs to be done next.

BHT has sought to step in when folks have said we need more help. We started by acting as a liaison with the HCA on PPE distribution to our community-based organizations having difficulty accessing PPE. We added our Care Connect Washington: A COVID Care Coordination Hub to allow our public health partners to focus on contract tracing. Over the last couple of months, we heard from partners that there might be more BHT could do. 

So, we went to work. This month the BHT Board of directors unanimously approved nearly $1.3M to support our region’s COVID response strategy. This decision will kick off an already busy time for our partners, but we stand ready to be of service and help the on-the-ground needs and efforts.

COVID Vaccine Trusted Messenger Campaign - $1,050,000

Project Goal: Get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible.

We’re supporting on-the-ground strategies to connect the most impacted communities, including but not limited to; Black, Indigenous, communities of color, and rural communities. We’ll start by looking at the data to make sure we have partnerships with the highest impacted communities to co-develop communication toolkits tailored to community needs, technical communication support, and reinforcing strategies with paid and earned media. If you want to learn more, contact Alethea@betterhealthtogether.org

Volunteer Pulse Oximeter Project - $13,000

Project Goal: Decrease the number of COVID positive people that need to use ED with use of at-home monitoring using pulse oximeter for six months

BHT will contract with Planned Parenthood’s Raíz program to support the capacity to offer every COVID positive person an opportunity for this support service. For more information, contact Zack@betterhealthtogether.org

Patient Access to Behavioral Health Services - $300,000

Project Goal: Reduce barriers to patients accessing telehealth behavioral health services.

BHT will contract with primary care and behavioral health partners in Spokane County to provide funds for a one-time program to support the purchase of cell phones or serviced for patients accessing behavioral health services. These funds will be matched with $100,000 from the Cambia Foundation to support our tribal partners and our rural primary care and behavioral health partners. We’ll be launching this program in April so give us a few minutes before you reach out to access the funds. For more information contact, charisse@betterhealthtogether.org

COVID Rental Assistance Support - $35,000

Project Goal: Get as many people rental assistance as quickly as possible.

BHT is expecting the City of Spokane will release an RFP to support rental assistance. We’re excited the City recognizes the need to focus more deliberately on impacted communities. A set of partners asked BHT to consider playing an intermediary financial role. This request humbled us. It’d be our intent to maximize funds to our community partners for outreach capacity and rental assistance to the folks who need it. So, we allocated administrative funds to support the added financial capacity we’d need to serve in this role. For more information, contact Hadley@betterhealthtogether.org