Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation Awards More than $800,000 to Michigan-Based Organizations
by Blues Perspectives
| 2 min read
The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation recently awarded a total of $842,490 to support research and community programs that identify and address critical issues affecting the health of Michigan residents. The grants offered by the Blue Cross Foundation allow for a range of applicants and ideas:
- Community Health Matching Program: Eleven community-based nonprofit organizations in Michigan will use these grants to develop, test or validate new techniques and programs to address the needs of its community members and produce a tangible effect in their lives.
- Investigator Initiated Programs: Four Michigan researchers will use these grants to turn theory into data, and data into knowledge. These grantees often go on to be published in scholarly journals, academic circles and community platforms that inform and shape future thought and improvement.
- Physician Investigator Research Award Program: Four Michigan physicians will use these grants to support their studies to address unmet health needs and unsatisfactory medical practices to improve the delivery and quality of patient care.
- Student Award Program: Eighteen Michigan students will receive these grants in recognition of their work to create effective and efficient solutions to the many health issues that people contend with every day.
- Request for Proposal: To encourage the development of projects aimed at suicide prevention, the Foundation is joining forces with other organizations to make $575,000 available to health care clinicians and behavioral health specialists to develop projects that will decrease the rate of suicide attempts and deaths by identifying children and/or adults who may be at risk; as well as addressing their needs for appropriate medical, social and behavioral services.
The Blue Cross Foundation gives nearly $2 million each year in grants to research quality, cost and access to health care. The funding spans the state, from the metro-Detroit area to the communities of the Upper Peninsula. An overview of the recipients of the BCBSM Foundation grants by region is below:
| Southeast Michigan Grantees | |||
| Grantee Name | Purpose of grant | Amount | County |
| Offering Alternative Therapies with Smiles, Inc. | To hire a grant writer to write and submit grant applications to fund and expand O.A.T.S. programming. | $3,500 | Oakland |
| Beaumont Hospital Dr. Daniel Arndt | To evaluate pediatric patients with epilepsy to determine if epilepsy can be cured by surgery or a less invasive method of laser ablation. | $10,000 | Oakland |
| Michigan Parkinson Foundation | To develop and produce a free of charge online training that provides an overview of Parkinson’s disease and care management strategies. | $34,000 | Oakland |
| Oakland University | To support a medical student in a research program. | $3,000 | Oakland |
| University of Michigan Dr. Mousumi Banerjee | To develop a machine learning tool integrating multiple data sources to predict risk of extubation failure for pediatric cardiac patients. | $50,000 | Washtenaw |
| University of Michigan | To support five doctoral and medical students in their dissertation research. | $15,000 | Washtenaw |
| Eastern Michigan University | To support a doctoral student in a dissertation program. | $3,000 | Washtenaw |
| Henry Ford Hospital Dr. Joseph Miller Egbe-Etu Emmanuel Etu, Ph.D. candidate | To evaluate the performance of hospital emergency departments during a medical surge scenario. | $10,000 | Wayne |
| Leaders Advancing and Helping Communities | To expand the ability to apply for substance abuse prevention grants to serve youth in Southeast Michigan. | $3,500 | Wayne |
| St. Patrick’s Senior Center, Inc. | To develop and submit a grant proposal for Emergency Response Funding for seniors. | $3,500 | Wayne |
| Henry Ford Health System Dr. Denise White Perkins | To reduce Hemoglobin A1c levels through social determinants of health referrals. | $50,000 | Wayne |
| Wayne State University Dr. Abdulghani Sankari | To assess the long-term cardiovascular outcome of heart rate changes during sleep. | $50,000 | Wayne |
| Life Directions | To reduce the harm of Adverse Childhood Experiences. | $34,000 | Wayne |
| Wayne State University | To support five doctoral and medical students in their dissertation research. | $15,000 | Wayne |
| Mid-Michigan Grantees | |||
| Michigan Health Information Network Shared | To validate the effectiveness of leveraging Michigan’s existing statewide health information exchange (HIE) infrastructure to improve speed and accuracy of Michigan’s current medicolegal death investigation (MDI) process. | $43,000 | Ingham |
| Michigan State Medical Society Foundation | To provide physicians, medical students, health care providers and all other persons interested in biomedical ethics issues with educational opportunities on relevant biomedical issues. | $36,000 | Ingham |
| Michigan State University | To support a doctoral student in a research program. | $3,000 | Ingham |
| Central Michigan University Dr. Zaira Khalid | To compare Cognivue, an assessment tool for cognitive changes, and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment results in primary care settings. | $9,990 | Isabella |
| Central Michigan University | To support three doctoral and medical students in their dissertation research. | $9,000 | Isabella |
| West Michigan Grantees | |||
| Western Michigan University Dr. Robin Criter | To determine the extent to which hearing difficulty contributes to performance on balance measures known to be predictive of fall risk. | $50,000 | Kalamazoo |
| Western Michigan University Dr. Silvia Linares | To improve maternal and child health outcomes among high risk women in Kalamazoo Co., by providing doula support during delivery and post-partum as part of an integrated care team. | $34,000 | Kalamazoo |
| Western Michigan University | To support a doctoral student in a dissertation program. | $3,000 | Kalamazoo |
| Spectrum Health Foundation Dr. Cara Poland | To address Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome through the dissemination of the GREAT MOMs toolkit to obstetric providers to treat pregnant women with opioid use disorders using medication to treat an opioid use disorder. | $34,000 | Kent |
| Our Kitchen Table | To pilot a multi-pronged approach to reduce health disparities by addressing food insecurity, food justice, nutrition and oral health. | $34,000 | Kent |
| Baldwin Family Health Care | To support access to telehealth care and offer virtual care to individuals in the network of clinics that serve residents that geographically span five counties and 2,542 square miles. | $50,000 | Lake |
| Bay Area Grantees | |||
| McLaren-Flint Hospital Michigan State University Dr. Julie Thai | To utilize motivational interviewing to help individuals better understand why they smoke and how to effectively stop smoking to reduce the risk for health conditions associated with smoking. | $10,000 | Genesee |
| Northern Michigan & Upper Peninsula Grantees | |||
| Portage Health Foundation | To train students, faculty and staff in Capturing Kids Hearts, the Baraga, Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon school districts will improve the school environment, develop improved social skills and performance. | $50,000 | Houghton |
| Michigan Technological University | To support a doctoral student in a dissertation program. | $3,000 | Houghton |
| Northern Michigan University Dr. Matthew Jennings | To meet the health care needs of the underserved communities of the U.P. by educating high school health sciences and/or science teachers with a 100% online program in the field of Clinical Molecular Genetics – Education Track at Northern Michigan University. | $34,000 | Marquette |
| In partnership with Michigan Health Endowment Fund | To increase access to education and resources to address the unmet needs of informal caregivers in all 15 counties of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. | $30,000 | Marquette |
| West End Health Foundation | To train students, faculty and staff in Capturing Kids Hearts, the Negaunee School District will improve the school environment, develop improved social skills and enhance student academic performance. | $25,000 | Marquette |
| Statewide Grantees | |||
| Statewide Grantees | To support Preventing Suicide in Michigan’s Health-Disparate Populations program. | $100,000 | Statewide |
Related:
- Addressing Disparity in End-of-Life Health Care
- Preparing for Future Medical Surges
- COVID-19 Accelerates Telehealth Expansion at Rural Health Centers
Photo credit: FamVeld
