New Jersey Centering Implementation Technical Assistance

Centering Healthcare Institute is a nonprofit organization that has worked closely with healthcare providers from all sectors to change healthcare. With more than two decades of experience, the Institute has developed and sustained the Centering® group healthcare model in 500 practice sites and within some of the largest health systems in the world. This evidence-based model of group healthcare visits is a paradigm shift that effectively addresses the complex social determinants of health. The Centering model combines health assessment, interactive learning and community building to help support positive health behaviors and drive better health outcomes. It brings patients out of the exam room and into a group setting, which also helps build their community of support.

This project, which is funded jointly and carried out collaboratively by The Nicholson Foundation, The Burke Foundation, and The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation, supports the expansion of the Centering model in conjunction with the New Jersey Department of Health (DOH) Healthy Women Healthy Families initiative. This DOH initiative selected six community-based grantees to carry out innovative maternal and child programs in 12 regions of the state to improve pregnancy outcomes in high-risk populations, address health disparities, and reduce Black infant mortality. Three of these grantees chose the Centering model of group visits as one of their interventions, and the Centering Healthcare Institute is providing technical assistance to help the grantees’ five sites implement the model. This project has the potential to not only to reduce preterm births and low birth weight and address racial disparities in outcomes for mothers and babies, but to contribute to the growth and sustainability of the Centering model of group health care in New Jersey.

Learn more about the Centering Healthcare Institute.