The Saving Mothers, Giving Life project aims to improve access to and the quality of maternal and infant healthcare to reduce maternal and newborn deaths. The project established a Maternal and Perinatal Death Surveillance and Response team and launched an interactive digital chat solution on WhatsApp to get important health information to pregnant women. Through these efforts, maternal and perinatal deaths in 25 private health facilities decreased by 60% and 16%, respectively.

Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) centers provide government-funded medical care and social services to those aged 55 and above who qualify for nursing home care but can still live independently with some assistance. There are currently more than 160 PACE centers in 32 states. PACE centers are also gaining momentum as a nursing home alternative, as several states have begun passing legislation and making policy changes to allow Medicaid to cover PACE care.

The Blueprint for Health model expands primary care access by requiring insurance providers in the state to pay additional monthly fees to cover more services for patients. Expanded services are provided by Patient-Centered Medical Homes and Community Health Teams, including nurses and counselors, at no cost to patients. Since starting in 2008, this model has helped significantly reduce medical and pharmaceutical claims.

VisionSpring provides more than two million pairs of glasses each year to those in need. Studies show that, when provided with free reading glasses, workers experience a 33% increase in income as they’re able to see and aren’t forced to leave the working world early as they age.

To improve voting access for residents of the Navajo Nation, who often don’t have official addresses, the Rural Utah Project partnered with Google to assign and distribute Plus Codes, more accurate address coordinates that use longitude and latitude. The organization has since registered nearly 2,000 new voters using the Plus Codes, and the new addresses have resulted in other unexpected benefits, such as improved response time for emergency responders and better access to delivery services.

Produce prescription programs like FreshRx Oklahoma and Recipe4Health are taking off as ways to combat heart problems and other diseases like diabetes. These programs provide free fruits and veggies to participants, helping increase access to healthy foods and address food insecurity. Research over the course of a year shows Recipe4Health participants significantly lowered their cholesterol and food security rates among participants dropped from 59% to 48%.

In response to varying abortion bans across states, nonprofit organizations are emerging to help women in states with strict abortion laws access the care they need. Nonprofits like the Center for Reproductive Rights, Northwest Abortion Access Fund and Indigenous Idaho Alliance provide women with free abortion pills, help them travel out of state for care and even challenge local courts attempting to pass strict trigger laws.

Telehealth appointments make it easier for people with disabilities to access healthcare, including medication abortions, by allowing those in need to access care from the comfort of their own homes. For many people, this eliminates several access barriers they often face when seeking care. Post-Roe, medication abortion via telehealth visits accounts for 16% of all reported abortions.

Opill is the first over-the-counter birth control pill available in the U.S. and is set to be available in stores like CVS, Target, Walgreens and Walmart, as well as online. Needing doctor’s appointments to get a prescription for birth control can be an unnecessary barrier to contraception access, but Opill being available over-the-counter makes it much easier, and more affordable, for people to access care.

Working on Womanhood (WOW) hosts weekly, school-based meetings for Black and Hispanic girls in grades six to 12 to connect, work through personal problems and build a sense of self-awareness and confidence, as this population is largely underserved by mental health programs. Research shows that WOW participants experience decreased anxiety and depression and WOW counselors also report seeing less anger and fights among the participating students.

The Art Experience provides free art therapy classes for caregivers, offering a space for them to gather for respite and creative self-expression. At the classes, caregivers learn mindfulness, self-care practices and meet one-on-one with certified art therapists to discuss their individual situations and learn ways to cope with stress.

The Ohio District 5 Area Agency on Aging hires state-tested nursing assistants (STNA) to act as community care specialists and provide in-home care to seniors. This care provides respite for unpaid family caregivers and allows seniors to continue living independently in their homes. In 2023 alone, the program served 130 residents, providing 2,371 hours of in-home care.

The Bradshaw Animal Shelter’s PAWS mobile clinic travels to homeless encampments and shelters throughout the community to provide care to residents’ pets, including vaccinations, microchips, flea, tick and parasite prevention, as well as spay and neuter services, free of charge.

Several hospitals are beginning to use artificial intelligence, like Chat GPT’s medical assistant Suzanne, to make cardiovascular medicine more accurate and effective. AI can detect illnesses that are hard to see with the human eye, interpret test results and make diagnoses quicker and help doctors provide more effective treatment to patients. Since AI emerged in healthcare in 2018, the FDA has approved about 700 AI and machine learning-enabled medical devices.

A Bessemer Elementary School, a telemedicine program launched in 2021 is combatting high rates of absenteeism by providing health care in school. Students can log into a computer at school and receive care, then head back to class rather than having to miss school for doctor visits or sick days. Since the program launched, absenteeism at the school fell from 49% during the 2021-2022 school year to 37% last year.

By December 2023, the nationwide campaign had vaccinated about 4.7 million girls; however, Osun continued to experience pushback, with citizens resisting the campaign due to misinformation and a lack of understanding about the vaccine’s significance. The federal government also joined in, adding the HPV vaccine to its routine immunization system, which helped about 4.7 million girls get vaccinated.

Black parents are at greater risk of experiencing serious complications during pregnancy and childbirth, which is why preserving Black birth care, like doulas, is so important to preventing unnecessary deaths and medical interventions. The doula community is growing and there’s currently a push among local doulas and providers to grow the network of doulas of color to increase the accessibility of relevant and representative birth care.

AI software BabyChecker is a portable ultrasound tool that can be accessed through smartphones and allows community health workers to easily and quickly detect pregnancy risks in rural areas where access to care is difficult. So far, over 20 community health workers have been trained to use the technology, and more than 2,000 pregnant women have been scanned using the BabyChecker app.

As rural hospitals stopped providing maternity care, Chatham Hospital opened a new Maternity Care Center in September 2020. The five-bed unit provides care to low-risk mothers and newborns and is staffed with family physicians trained in obstetrics and surgery, to keep costs down. In three years, the Maternity Care Center has delivered 402 babies, with birth volumes gradually increasing each year.

In rural areas where obstetric care is hard to access, Indigenous women are opting for traditional birthing practices and building a community around pregnancy and childbirth education. Groups like the He Sapa Birth Circle and the Great Plains Tribal Leaders’ Health Board provide spaces for Indigenous parents to seek advice, receive support and education and get connected with traditional care options.

With the new statewide Medicaid expansion, the Department of Adult Correction is working to ensure fewer people reenter society after incarceration and enter a healthcare coverage gap by helping people apply for Medicaid before release. With the Medicaid expansion, 80% of the 15,000 people released from prison each year are now eligible for coverage, and prison staff submit about 100 Medicaid applications each week.

The Musical Memories Cafe is a social gathering space for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia, as well as their caregivers. Participants gather to enjoy music, seek refuge outside of their homes and get access to peer support and health resources. There are more than 1,000 memory cafes operating around the world, both in-person and virtually.

Project My Heart Your Heart recycles pacemakers from deceased cardiovascular patients to give them to people overseas living in poor countries where pacemakers are historically hard to access and afford. The My Heart Your Heart lab has received around 50,000 pacemakers and has reconditioned and implanted about 500 in heart patients in several countries.

Navigators with the National Abortion Federation help people access care and cover the cost of an abortion, including necessary travel costs for those living in states with strict abortion bans. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, demand for this help has skyrocketed. NAF spends $200,000 a month — up from the previous $30,000 — in states where abortion bans are the strictest, like Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

The OmniSalud program provides zero-premium health care coverage to low-income immigrants without documentation, helping make health care more accessible for those who normally struggle to get it due to their legal status. This year, the program expanded to 11,000 slots and hopes to continue growing.