IMPACT AREA
As Director of the Health Strategies and Innovation team at the Center for Health and Research Transformation (CHRT), I am excited to share the progress we made in 2024 to advance locally driven, data-informed strategies that improve the health and well-being of Michigan residents. Our team’s work this year reflects CHRT’s long-standing commitment to integrating health and social care through efforts that streamline care, build shared infrastructure, and reduce inefficiencies.
This year, we expanded our role as a trusted partner to local and state stakeholders seeking to better connect healthcare and social service systems. Our backbone support for complex, multi-sector collaborations demonstrate the critical role CHRT plays in helping stakeholders coordinate efforts, navigate challenges, and share best practices.
Through a Medicaid match-funded initiative, we continued to support the foundational development of systems to connect local service delivery networks with Michigan’s broader statewide data-sharing infrastructure. In collaboration with seven regional health collaboratives, state agencies, and frontline providers, CHRT contributed to early-stage planning, coordination, and implementation efforts that will enable more seamless information exchange and service navigation. Highlights included the launch of a statewide Community Advisory Council, participation in data-sharing pilots with the Michigan Health Information Network (MiHIN), and increased support for community health workers and other essential frontline roles. Our team also continued to provide backbone and technical support for Mi Community Care (MiCC), helping advance interoperable referrals, care team coordination, and community-informed strategies in Livingston and Washtenaw counties.
We made meaningful progress in elevating community voice across multiple initiatives. In addition to the Community Advisory Council (CAC), composed of Medicaid members and community health workers, locally, we launched a new Community Advisory Board within the Washtenaw Health Initiative (WHI). Our team supported WHI’s strategic planning and opioid settlement response, and co-facilitated engagement sessions with older adults and caregivers as part of the Transportation Assistance Hub evaluation—ensuring community input helps shape future solutions.
Nationally and statewide, HSI team members were invited to present our work at leading conferences, share insights with MDHHS workgroups, and offer thought partnership on emerging policy priorities—from EMS data integration to the evolving role of regional health collaboratives. These opportunities affirm that our work is timely and impactful. In 2024, we confronted complex challenges: siloed data systems, sustainability concerns for community-based organizations, and the need for scalable workforce solutions. Yet, our team rose to the occasion—with humility, expertise, and a shared belief in the power of collaborative solutions.
As we look ahead to 2025, we remain focused on building infrastructure that not only connects systems but empowers people. Building on our foundational efforts, a newly launched Medicaid match-funded initiative promises to expand on earlier efforts and focuses on operationalizing closed-loop referrals, strengthening workforce integration, and developing sustainable pathways for scaling up promising innovations.
None of this would have been possible without the talent and dedication of our exceptional team. They have not only delivered on complex initiatives, but also formed strong, trusted relationships with local, regional, and state partners. Thank you to our partners across Michigan and beyond for your continued collaboration—and to our team for another outstanding year of work.
Sharon Kim
Health Strategies and Innovation Director
In 2024, CHRT supported multiple initiatives through the Washtenaw Health Initiative (WHI). This included the final year of the Opioid Project, where CHRT contributed to a county-wide assessment and development of a funding strategy for use of the national opioid settlement funds. CHRT also assisted the WHI’s Healthy Aging Collaborative in launching a shared housing initiative for older adults. Additionally, CHRT began facilitating the Health Berrien Consortium’s strategic planning process, conducting stakeholder interviews to inform a new Community Health Improvement Plan.
These efforts helped guide $2.25 million in opioid settlement investments, advanced a new housing model for older adults, and laid the foundation for strategic community health planning in Berrien County.
Services: Backbone support, strategic planning, stakeholder engagement
CHRT facilitates a growing statewide learning network of Regional Health Collaboratives. The network brings together cross-sector leaders to address shared challenges, co-develop solutions, and scale effective strategies for integrating health and social care through data sharing and collaborative infrastructure.
In 2024, the learning network supported communities across Michigan—from urban centers to rural areas—helping strengthen local coordination, improve service alignment, scale innovation, and build shared infrastructure that remains responsive to local needs.
Services: Health care strategies, data analysis
CHRT participated in MDHHS’s Community Information Exchange (CIE) Advisory Committee to the Michigan Health Information Technology (HIT) Commission and its various working groups, sharing local expertise from MI Community Care’s (MiCC’s) multi-year experience with health and social care integration.
HRT helped to advance MDHHS’s roadmap for health and social care integration through statewide CIE initiatives while working to identify ways to translate guidance to improve local implementation through MiCC.
Services: Health care strategies, data analysis
IMPACT AREA
