Chicago Pilot Delivering Produce to Hypertensive Medicaid Patients


Excerpt

A pilot project in Chicago involving Medical Home Network (MHN), Top Box Foods and Alivio Medical Center (AMC) is designed to determine if providing home-delivered fruits and vegetables, in tandem with care coordination and health coaching, can improve the health and food security of hypertensive Medicaid patients while also lowering care costs.

Each project partner brings its own expertise to the project, which was launched March 20, 2023, and funded by a grant from the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program-Produce Prescription Program. Top Box Foods has experience in food distribution and food access initiatives; MHN has care coordination and data analytics experience; and AMC has been delivering care across 10 Chicago communities for over 30 years.

AMC identified 114 of its Medicaid patients with high, uncontrolled blood pressure to be part of the program. Participants will receive boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables from Top Box Foods each week and will also have access to health coaches and culturally appropriate diet counseling from AMC.

MHN will evaluate the success of the program by analyzing participants’ food insecurity and social determinants of health screenings, healthcare use and costs, and blood pressure readings taken at home by participants, among other metrics. This added layer of data analytics sets this program apart.

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