There is no one-size-fits-all approach to starting a family. Creating a more equitable health system is one of our top priorities and developing programs focused on improving maternal care is integral to our overall strategy.

• We made it easier for members to navigate and access resources on our maternal health website.
• Ovia Health is a new resource that supports members at different stages of family building and overall health. One focus of the personalized health platform: preventing adverse outcomes for couples trying to build a family and supporting healthy pregnancies.
• We expanded TeamBirth to nine additional Massachusetts hospitals. A collaboration with Ariadne Labs, this program elevates the voice of the birthing person, respecting cultures and communication styles to improve safety, dignity and equity in childbirth.
• Meeting people where they are helps close health equity gaps. Through Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island and Women & Infants Hospital we provided thousands of no-cost, healthy meals to expecting patients with high-risk prenatal medical conditions or whose income limits access to consistent, nutritious food.
• Through a collaboration with Maven Clinic, the world’s largest virtual clinic for women’s and family health, Point32Health colleagues and eligible health plan members have 24/7 access to reproductive endocrinologists, obstetricians, gynecologists, nutritionists, mental health providers, adoption coaches and other care providers to help guide them through processes like exploring fertility treatments, navigating benefits and postpartum care — making the entire journey more seamless.
• Our community engagement team supported diaper banks and community baby showers throughout the communities we serve, offering essential supplies and resources to improve maternal and infant health. In 2023, we organized 6 events, connecting new parents and expecting families to resources, and distributed supplies, including diapers, wipes, and other baby necessities, to around 1,200 families. 

Behavioral and medical care should work together to successfully treat the whole person. This integrated care model connects an individual with the right level of care for their needs at the right time – and through every stage of life.

• Comprehensive behavioral health coverage, support and services are included in nearly all our health plans, ensuring our members have access to high-quality, coordinated care that improves both their physical and mental well-being. In addition, our regional and national provider networks, as well as our suite of virtual tools offers our health plan members both convenience and choice when seeking care and supportive resources for children and adults.
• Figuring out where to go and who to see can be a significant barrier for those seeking care and needed resources to improve their mental well-being. In early 2023 we introduced the Behavioral Health Service Navigation program to connect health plan members with an available provider or outpatient program based on their care needs and preferences. This program is further complemented by Point32Health’s integrated care teams, as well as member service to ensure our health plan members get the care they need – easily and quickly.
• Studies have shown that caregiver support services can help reduce depression, anxiety and stress. Recognizing the toll caregiving can take, we introduced Wellthy to all our colleagues, as well as eligible health plan members across New England. Wellthy offers a wide array of market-leading services, including hands-on support to locate care facilities and screen home health aides, tools to keep families informed, identify financial resources and other daily tasks aimed at reducing the burden of caregivers.
• We can take the best care of our members, customers, providers and communities when we take care of ourselves — including our mental health. From onsite and virtual exercise opportunities to guided meditation, summer well-being time and our employee assistance program, our colleagues have access to no-cost mental health and wellness programs that help build resilience, find peace of mind and give time back to focus on what matters most, professionally and personally. A key resource is meQuilibrium which helps colleagues build resilience, understand themselves better and build habits that help their emotional health. This tool also provides resources for managers to better understand and support their teams and build resilience together.
• Knowing how much financial stress negatively affects a person’s mental health, we help each other in times of crisis. In 2023, we provided $100K in grants to colleagues experiencing unexpected financial hardship through our Employee Needs Fund.
• Our Peak Mind Resource Hub, available online to members and nonmembers at no cost, includes webinars, a 4-week meditation challenge, Peak Mind collaborations with Dr. Amishi Jha and other mindfulness resources.

Inclusive, affirming health care that is responsive to the diverse needs of the LGBTQ+ community improves health outcomes. This year we continued our efforts to address barriers to care and promote health equity for LGBTQ+ people.

• We reviewed our preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV coverage from the perspective of our members to ensure aspects of needed care are easily accessible.
• Our collaboration with Included Health improves health care navigation for LGBTQ+ members – whether seeking a culturally competent primary care provider, exploring gender-affirming surgery, accessing behavioral health care or other support. Over 90% of Included Health’s LGBTQ+ health navigation team identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community, allowing them to serve as trusted advisors and deliver more authentic support to each person they serve.

Social determinants of health (SDoH) are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age and the forces and systems that shape lives. Identifying, understanding and addressing community inequities, can improve wellness and health outcomes.

• Our goal is to support our members in the community where they live to successfully address SDoH needs, and reduce health disparities among the diverse communities we serve. We developed a gold standard Community Health Worker (CHW) program comprising more than 30 CHWs who apply their unique understanding of the experience, language and/or culture of the populations they serve. These frontline public health workers are trusted members of the community, allowing them to work closely with health care providers and community-based organizations to improve members’ access to social resources and healthcare navigation. CHWs arrange, coordinate, evaluate and advocate for safety net services that provide for basic needs such as education, housing, health care, legal, transportation and counseling assistance.  In 2023 Point32Health’s CHW program served over 14,000 members in addressing SDoH needs.
• Point32Health recognizes the importance of the relationship between stable housing and the ability to access quality health care. People facing housing instability can experience a wide variety of health issues including elevated rates of chronic disease and mortality, as well as depression, anxiety and suicide. In response, Point32Health’s CHWs secured access to over $1 million to assist 200 members transition into suitable housing under MassHealth’s MATCH program, which helped mitigate the cost of housing by helping pay for move-in costs for eligible recipients. The Point32Health CHW team also helps members maintain health care coverage and assisted approximately 2,300 members to retain MassHealth eligibility.
• To ensure equitable access to health care resources during the MassHealth redetermination period, our community engagement team collaborated with community-based organizations to educate and assist members and community residents in maintaining coverage. Through a series of events, health fairs, and dedicated support spaces at health centers, we engaged more than 25,000 people. As part of our commitment to supporting Medicaid redetermination, we also sponsored a health care resource room at the Greater New Bedford Health Center to serve as a hub for health navigation and resources. Since its opening in 2023, this service has helped more than 5,200 community members access health insurance support while connecting them to other resources that address their health care needs.
• Our community engagement team helped address the social and economic needs of community members through initiatives such as backpack drives, and health and resource fairs. In 2023, we provided school supplies, such as backpacks, pencil cases and bookmarks at events engaging 9,000 community members. We also conducted 78 health fairs and 38 presentations, connecting people in communities most affected by systemic barriers to essential health resources.
• We understand that the people closest to the issues are in the best position to offer solutions. We are committed to continuously improving our service to members and communities by actively seeking feedback. Our community engagement team operates 3 member councils, engaging 15 members and, in 2023, conducted a community listening tour with participation from 42 community-based organizations, gathering valuable insights to enhance health care experiences.

People in many communities, particularly low-income and rural areas, lack access to grocery stores and supermarkets that offer healthy, affordable, culturally relevant food options.

• Point32Health was one of 141 organizations spotlighted across the country as part of the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities. Point32Health and Point32Health Foundation delivered more than $1.5 million in grants to 46 community organizations addressing food insecurity and expanded the company’s matching gift and volunteer time off programs to support nonprofits working on this issue.
• Our care management program helps members purchase nutritious groceries and fresh produce to alleviate food insecurity. Our community engagement team distributed more than 5,000 bags of food to 1,435 families last year. We also serve 500 households per month at a free mobile market in Revere, Mass., through a partnership with Cambridge Health Alliance and the Greater Boston Food Bank that began in 2018. Each household receives up to eight fresh fruits and vegetables and up to four nonperishable items each visit.
• For birthing people managing chronic diseases like diabetes, congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), our collaboration with Mom’s Meals provides tailored nutritional support.
• Our team of Community Health Workers work closely with members to identify community resources, including safety net services such as SNAP and WIC. They complete referrals to food pantries, encourage members to utilize local farmers markets or farm shares for fresh produce and provide culturally sensitive resources.
• Our collaboration with Good Measures provides personalized nutrition coaching with registered dieticians and digital tools for help preventing and managing diet-related illnesses.

Here are some examples of how we infused DEIA in our workplace culture in 2023:

• Cultural Social Hours are a vibrant part of how we connect as Point32Health colleagues, learn together and embrace the diversity that enriches our organization. These monthly all-colleague events are intended to create, educate and celebrate community at Point32Health. Ten cultural social hours in 2023 were attended by thousands of colleagues. Replays are available for colleagues to watch anytime.
• We began My Inner Compass, an immersive, experiential inclusive leadership program with our senior leadership team. This program continues in 2024 with reciprocal mentoring and a new videos series where leaders share their perspectives on what it means to lead inclusively, what it takes to be a leader in a health care organization that aspires to see and understand the needs of diverse colleague, member, provider and vendor populations and how to leverage this knowledge to create even better outcomes.
• We created DEIA dashboards for senior leaders in 2023, including workforce demographics, CRG metrics and a DEIA sentiment indicator. Point32Health’s DEIA sentiment indicator: We believe what gets measured gets done. This was our first attempt at measuring inclusion using average rating of statements related to inclusion within our colleague engagement survey to help us understand the DEIA sentiment of colleagues throughout the organization, which we’ll monitor over time and take action.
• We piloted an Inclusion Bar Raiser program, certifying a handful of colleagues as Inclusion Bar Raisers (IBRs). Passionate stewards of the hiring process, dedicated to assessing the inclusive leadership competencies, skills and track record of candidates for leadership positions at Point32Health, IBRs also watch out for and disrupt unconscious bias in the final round of the interview process to help support equitable and inclusive hiring practices. IBRs are objective interviewers not associated with the team hiring for the role. They do not make the final hiring decision; instead, they are one voice on an interview panel, working collaboratively to hire the best, most qualified candidate for the position.
• We hosted the Latino DEI Collective Fall Summit at our Canton headquarters—powered by the National Hispanic Corporate Council (NHCC) and Point32Health—where over a hundred Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) practitioners, colleagues and guests connected and learned together about elevating career, educational, financial, social and wellness equity.
• Our commitment to DEIA extends beyond our organization through external Points of View articles that include workplace DEIA, accessibility and LGBTQ+ community.

Our CRGs cover a range of identities and interests, including Abilities+, Black Professionals, Flourish (well-being), Military Veterans, The Multicultural Connection, Pride Point (LGBTQ+), Women and Allies Network, Young Professionals Network and a new Hispanic/Latino CRG, Unidos, which launched in 2024.

• Our 2023 CRG membership growth—doubling overall members and more than doubling people leaders who are CRG members—resulted from our focus on evolving our CRGs to increase colleague engagement, become a talent incubator of next-generation underrepresented talent and foster company-wide allyship and networks. We also launched a new CRG platform to make it easier to join and communicate with CRG members.
• Thousands of colleagues learned together during CRG-led experiences throughout 2023, including a Peak Mind session about mindfulness, an inclusive leadership-focused panel session with Point32Health Board members, a collaborative event with Special Olympics athletes, and opportunities to connect and learn across difference during Black History Month, Pride Month, Diwali, Veteran’s Day and more.

Here are some of the ways we continued to advance accessibility and disability inclusion in 2023:

• Our disability-focused CRG chose a new name, Abilities+, and more than doubled in size.
• Hundreds of colleagues attended all-colleague disability-focused events to learn about autism, neurodiversity, disability pride, national disability employment awareness month and more.
• In partnership with internal stakeholders and colleagues with disabilities, we reviewed and refreshed our colleague accommodations policy and social media accessibility practices.
• We shared a Points of View article externally: Disability inclusion in the workplace.

In 2023:

• We gathered insights from and centered the experiences of people with disabilities in the materials created as part of the renaming of our Tufts Health One Care plan (formerly Tufts Health Unify). The cast and crew who created the television ads included people with apparent and non-apparent disabilities, and featured members with authentic disabilities. Learn more about Tufts Health One Care, our plan for people between the ages of 21–64 who have both Medicare and Medicaid.
• We continued to work with and learn from organizations with a shared commitment to advance DEIA and health equity, like Fenway Health. We were honored to sponsor and have colleagues volunteer at the inaugural 2023 Fenway Health Strides for Action Festival, to support the work to positively impact health care outcomes within the LGBTQ+ community.
• We piloted a language learning experience with CRG members to increase linguistic competency of colleagues, which we’re expanding to more colleagues to help them best serve our members.

The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, a Harvard Medical School affiliate and part of Point32Health, conducts world-class research to eliminate bias from health care systems, policies and processes, and puts us in a unique position to harness forward-thinking research.

• As the nation’s first medical school-appointing department based in a health plan, the Institute’s Harvard-appointed faculty advance its mission to improve health care delivery and population health through research and education—locally, nationally and internationally—in partnership with health plans, delivery systems and public health agencies.
• Our $5.4M investment (direct and in-kind) helped raise $89.3M in sponsored-research grants exploring health inequities and disparities; policies and system innovations that improve health outcomes; genomics practices to improve individual and population health; infection control and detection; maternal health; and more.
• Research conducted by the Institute contributes towards advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) and health equity. Three examples of DEIA and health equity-focused papers published by the Institute in 2023:
  • Alon Peltz and colleagues examined Medicaid emergency department (ED) reimbursement algorithms for evidence of potential racial and ethnic bias. Their study revealed that Black and Hispanic children are more likely to have ED visits classified as nonemergent compared to White counterparts.
  • Research by Douglas Krakower, Julia Marcus, and research fellow Michael Traeger demonstrated potential over-the-counter (OTC) availability of preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV could significantly reduce barriers to access, particularly benefiting stigmatized groups and those facing logistical and financial hurdles.
  • Mei-Sing Ong and colleagues examined racial and ethnic disparities in early mortality among patients with inborn (inherited) errors of immunity. Their findings underscore the critical need to address health care barriers facing historically marginalized communities.

Learn more in The Harvard Pilgrim Institute’s annual report

Our support for cancer initiatives continued in 2023, exemplifying our commitment to innovative solutions to combat cancer and improve outcomes.

• Working with Foundation Medicine, we expanded access to comprehensive genomic profiling for people facing advanced cancer, making it possible to deliver personalized treatment tailored to each patient’s unique tumor genomic profile.
• Point32Health was the first commercial health plan in the U.S. to collaborate with GRAIL to offer the Galleri® multi-cancer early detection screening test. Initially piloted with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care members in Maine, this program has expanded to members whose primary care provider is a Mass General Brigham-affiliated provider and to Dana Farber Cancer Institute employees covered by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
• Point32Health is part of the inaugural steering committee for CancerX, the public-private partnership designed to boost innovation in the fight against cancer.

Our Innovation Challenge facilitates the discovery, development and implementation of solutions that improve health care for our members and communities, increase affordability and improve the overall health care experience.

• Movn Health, a leading telehealth provider for remote cardiac rehab and prevention, was the winner of our second annual Innovation Challenge in 2023. In partnership with health plans and providers, Movn helps close cardiovascular care gaps using an evidence-based approach. Research shows Movn members exercise more, follow medication recommendations, and experience lower blood pressure, depression, readmissions and care costs. The win allows Movn Health to work with us on a pilot or program, funded by Point32Health.
• The winner of our first Innovation Challenge, Freespira, Inc. is the maker and provider of Freespira, the only medication-free, FDA-cleared digital therapeutic treatment proven to significantly reduce or eliminate symptoms of panic disorder, panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in just 28 days. Point32Health’s collaboration with Freespira offers access to Freespira through a demonstration project, allowing us to track member engagement, member satisfaction, health outcomes and impact on crucial utilization metrics, like emergency room visits.