Our Goal
We collaborated with the State of New Jersey and its public officials to strengthen the state’s ability to deliver the most efficient and effective health and early childhood services.
The Importance of the State's Role
New Jersey funds and administers programs that provide health and early childhood services to the public. The state government also sets regulations, rules, and expectations by which non-governmental local agencies, private organizations, and nonprofits operate. As a result, policies implemented at the state level shape the practices and approaches used by all of those working in health and early childhood.
Linda Schwimmer, President & CEO of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute, presents the Medicaid 2.0 report at the State House in Trenton in March, 2017.
What We Did
State officials want the best outcomes for the populations they serve, and they are guided by both their professional knowledge and the analysis of meaningful data on the issues they oversee. Therefore, The Nicholson Foundation supported New Jersey’s state programs in health and early childhood by investing in data collection and analysis and piloting professional development programs to improve service delivery.
Our work in this area included:
- Funding the New Jersey Healthcare Quality Institute’s Medicaid 2.0 Initiative, which sought to fundamentally redesign New Jersey’s Medicaid system to better achieve the “Triple Aim” of improved patient experience, improved population health, and reduced cost of care.
- Helping the state implement the Grow NJ Kids QRIS (Quality Rating and Improvement System) for rating and assessing the quality of family child care.
- Partnering with the state to link the Homeless Management Information System data from 19 of New Jersey’s 21 counties to Medicaid claims data, which will help the state’s Medicaid program make decisions on spending for supportive housing and other services to improve the well-being of New Jersey’s homeless population.