Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | December 15, 2025 | Worcester Business Journal 11 Why do people take the bus? The highest percentage of WRTA riders use the bus to access their health care appointments. Reason for taking the bus Healthcare appointments 49% Shopping or errands 47% Work 38% To visit friends or family 31% Going out (dining/ entertainment/nightlife) 28% School 13% Child care 4% Source: MassINC Polling Group's Regional and Rider Voices on WRTA Services report, Zero Fare Coalition quality, dignified access to the bus for those of different mobilities." Diverse needs In 2024, Senior Connection launched its Care Express Bus, a mobile clinic offering free medication management; health, dental, and vision screenings; and referral services to older adults within 61 cities and towns in Central Massachusetts. Dixon was inspired to create the mobile care bus aer witnessing the challenges seniors faced, especially in rural areas, to access health care during the COVID pandemic. Today, Senior Connection is working to designate the Care Express Bus as a Rural Health Clinic, which will allow the organi- zation to provide a broader out- reach with more services, such as preventative screenings. To further enhance its reach, the organization has partnered with the Worcester-based Center for Health Impact, which offers translation and medical interpretation services and Community Health Worker trainings for Senior Connection. Joanne Calista, CEO of Center for Health Impact, has seen first-hand people being priced out of Worcester, moving to rural communities without substantial healthcare systems. "It particularly pains me to hear of people that have been in Worcester for many generations having to move out," she said. While she sees all groups suffer when there is limited access to health care, Calista said diverse and marginalized communities can experience exacerbat- ed disparities. is includes accessing providers with specific language and cultural competencies, an issue already readily present in urban areas. "ere's less folks that represent the people that they serve," she said. e Center for Health Impact steps in to help fill that service gap. With its partnership with Senior Connection, the center especially works to train community health workers to better meet the needs of the Senior Con- nection's Grandparents Raising Grand- kids program: an eponymously-named initiative offering expansive services to grandparents raising their grandchildren, including healthcare, advocacy, legal aid, rental assistance, and financial literacy. Community health workers are state-certified public health workers who bridge cultural and language gaps, offer- ing a wide range of services from health education to care coordination to health screenings, according to the Massachu- setts Department of Public Health. Senior Connection provides Grand- parents Raising Grandchildren to rural communities through its Care Express Bus, and the Center for Health Impact trains CHWs to understand the nuanced experience of being a grandparent care- giver of a grandchild. "We focused on a lot of the unique challenges. While it can be joyful to step in and raise a grandchild, oentimes, the circumstances are very difficult," said Calista. A parent may not be able to care for their child due to death, incarceration, or an overdose, she said, and the grand- parents now have additional financial responsibilities making them unable to retire when they had planned. Between 65% to 70% of the CHWs the Center for Health uses are people of color or those who have emigrated from other countries. "at also helps folks to broker those divides and sometimes mistrust with the healthcare system," Calista said. In-house healthcare CHWs have proven vital in Dr. Apurv Soni's work in bringing clinical care to people's homes, especially for those in rural communities. Among the initiatives Soni and his team are working on is their Skilled Nursing Facility at Home trial. Soni is an assistant professor of medicine and director of the Program in Digital Medi- cine at UMass Chan Medical School. e MassHealth-funded initiative aims to provide a skilled nursing facility level of care in people's homes, with minimal technology required on the patient's part. e completed SNF at Home program would bring physical and occupational therapists, nurses, and rehab to patients' homes along with remote monitoring at UMass Memorial and the assistance of CHWs. Soni is working on a Healthy at Home pilot study for patients with COPD. "At the first sign of illness, we can reach out to them and see if we can do early intervention or manage it so that they don't worsen to the point where they need to be hospitalized," said Soni. rough the program, CHWs would become the eyes on the patient as they help them set up and troubleshoot any necessary technologies, he said. Additionally, the program would equip community paramedics with digi- tal and AI technologies to allow them to provide higher levels of care. For exam- ple, they could use digital stethoscopes that guide paramedics, record exams, and analyze results. ese workers would then collabo- rate in conjunction with the rest of a patient's care team, creating a compre- hensive network of providers who deliver care to patients, no matter how far from the hospital or physician's office they are. "Community paramedics be- come your hands on the patient. And then the central healthcare worker, physicians, nurses, nurse practitioner, pharmacist become the brain on the patient," Soni said. Before he assumed his current role, while completing his medical degree and PhD, Soni established an academic collaboration between UMass Chan and a rural medical center in Gujarat, India, which informed his work in research and clinical innovation. e partnership saw community health workers travel to rural homes, using smartphone technology to per- form population-based screenings for conditions such as hypertension and atrial fibrillation. e program found the burden of atrial fibrillation was 30 times higher than what had been previ- ously reported in India. Over the past 10 years, the program has served more than 300,000 individ- uals throughout 250 villages. "What they taught me was you can – with the right people, right technology – you can bring science and medicine to people's homes," said Soni, "and if you could do that in the rural, western part of India, we should be able to do that in Worcester." Dr. Apurv Soni, assistant professor of medicine and director of the Program in Digital Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School Joanne Calista, CEO of Center for Health Impact W Terry Cherry, a member of the Zero Fare Coalition, is a fre- quent rider of the WRTA bus. PHOTO | COURTESY OF ZERO FARE COALITION

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