In the News

Four area health care organizations will receive help in adopting innovative practices to improve patient care and reduce costs through recent state grant awards. The Lowell Community Health Center, Lynn Community Health Center, North Shore Community Health, and Steward Health Care’s Holy Family Hospital in Methuen will receive a combined $413,973 in funding announced June 26. The funding is part of $3 million awarded to 27 community health centers and hospitals statewide.

Four community health centers in Massachusetts, including one in Lynn, have been awarded a total of $600,000 to support efforts to treat people with asthma, diabetes and cancer in underserved communities.… The grants, which come from a multi-state settlement with pharmaceutical manufacturers, will be used to expand the use of community health workers. Each of the centers identified goals to use their health workers to help patients receive quality health services and improve access to care in ways that can reduce health disparities and control costs.

Downtown Lynn was the scene of a flash mob.… The city of Lynn Community Health Center, along with the nonprofit Food Project, the Lynn Khmer youth group KAYA, and the Lynn Food and Fitness Alliance headed by the Lynn Health Department, put on the spontaneous dance in honor of National Community Health Center Week, said Cindy Steger-Wilson, the marketing and communications manager for the health center.

The dental benefits issue came to the forefront recently here in Massachusetts, a state known for generous Medicaid benefits. Under budgetary pressures, the state stopped paying private Medicaid providers for fillings, root canals, crowns and dentures in July 2010. But it recently decided to restore part of that coverage. Starting in January, Massachusetts Medicaid will pay for fillings — but only for those in the front of the mouth. The reasoning was that healthy front teeth were more important for getting and keeping jobs.