News & Events

A message to our Holyoke and Chicopee Health Center Medical Patients:

Hospitals are filling up due to COVID 19 omicron surge and staffing shortages. Please DO NOT go to the hopsital for testing or minor symptoms. If you need a COVID Test, call (413) 420 -2200 to schedule a testing appointment. Come to our Walk-in Center for: cough, fever, sore throat, abdominal pain, minor cuts, rashes, vomiting, diarrhea, asthma, allergy symptoms or pain with peeing. Call (413)420-2200 for 24/7 nurse advice.

In order to keep our patients and staff, safe and healthy whenever possible we are changing scheduled in person appointments during the month of January to telehealth. If you currently have a scheduled appointment that the health center would like to change to telehealth you will be contacted by health center staff.  Telehealth visits allow patients to stay in the comfort and safety of their home while still being able to talk with medical providers in real time to get the medical care they need. At this time we will not be scheduling new wellness or routine care visits until after February 14^th.

Holyoke Health Center (HHC) received a $2,500 grant from Health New England (HNE)for distributing self-monitoring blood pressure kits to patients unable to come into the health center during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the pandemic, the City of Holyoke was deemed a sustained COVID-19 hotspot, meaning that COVID-19 community transition remained high for numerous months. Fewer patients came into the health center, and HHC’s onsite medical team accommodated patients who no longer came in to the health center with telehealth appointments to avoid interruptions in critical medical care and services.

Funding from HNE used to purchase at-home blood pressure kits. The kits are designed to record a history of readings, making it easy to share with their doctors during remote telehealth appointments. Blood pressure numbers are important in determining hypertension and related chronic diseases. This information is used to evaluate medication levels and course of treatment for better long-term outcomes.

Health New England is the only regional not-for-profit health plan based in Springfield, Massachusetts and serves commercial members in Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire Counties in Western Massachusetts and Worcester County. As part of its community benefits program, it developed the COVID-19 Mini Grant Program to help address the needs in our community.

Thank you, Health New England, for awarding the health center with the financial support to continue providing our patients with the best possible care!

Holyoke, MA - Holyoke Health Center has been awarded $75,000 from the Provider Access Grant Improvement Grant Program (PAIGP) in their third round of grant awards. Holyoke Health was among 61 MassHealth Fee-for-Service Providers awarded, which totaled over $1.84M. The PAIGP grant serves to help providers increase access to healthcare, and improve outcomes for patients with disabilities, or for whom English is not a first language. These awards are to be used for purchasing accessible medical diagnostic equipment, communication devices, and other resources.

Holyoke Health Center is pleased to use this grant towards expanding the Vision Center—which is relocating to the Steiger Building and is scheduled to open December of this year. The new location will provide additional space for exam rooms and equipment, allowing them to treat more patients. The funds will also be used to purchase an instrument called Maestro II, which has dual functions: 

1. The first as a camera to take pictures of the inside of a patient’s eyes to help record any abnormalities.
2. The second is an OCT (optical coherence tomographer) which allows us to take scans of parts of the back of the eye to see if there is pathology present that is not obvious to the examiner’s eye. For instance: fluid from diabetic retinopathy under the retina causing blurry vision or changes in the optic nerve that indicate glaucoma is developing.

Megan McPhail, an Optometrist at Holyoke Health Center, highlights the significance of these improvements, “In the past, we have had to refer patients out for OCTs. Now we will be able to perform the scans here, which will help determine whether a patient needs to be referred to a specialist for treatment. Recently, MA passed a bill that will allow optometrists to treat Glaucoma for the first time. We are all trained during school to diagnose and treat Glaucoma, however, each state has laws on what we are and are not allowed to treat. We have had to send all of our patients to an ophthalmologist for evaluation and treatment, and often our patients would have to find someone who spoke English to go with them because the provider did not have an interpreter. Now we will be able to keep a majority of these patients in house and monitor and treat them here. This is huge!”

The PAIG grant will provide additional support to members of the community and health center. McPhail adds, “We are one of the only locations that takes Mass Health and has translation services so our patients love coming here for their eye care. As our department expands, we will have the equipment necessary to support the expansion. Super exciting.”

A message from our Center for Recovery & Support: This year has been harder than most in many ways. We have lost so many loved ones not only to COVID-19, but to preventable overdoses. Since the pandemic began, the number of opioid-related deaths in Holyoke and Western Mass have been on the rise. Below is data gathered by the Communities that HEAL study on Holyoke related OD cases through 2020.

Tomorrow, August 31st Holyoke Health Center staff are wearing purple to remember those we've lost, open our hearts to the people left behind, and pledge to do all we can to #Endoverdose. Our community is disproportionately impacted by opioids and overdose. We believe that every individual, family and community deserves recovery. Overdoses are preventable and no family should ever experience the devastating pain of losing their loved ones in this way.

Recovery is accessible to everyone. The Center for Recovery and Support at Holyoke Health Center provides much more than medication for substance use disorder, we also provide hope that recovery is possible with the support of the recovery programs at CRS.

In recognition of Overdose Awareness Day, Holyoke Health Center and the Center for Recovery and Support wants to share a reminder on accessibility to the lifesaving tool of Naloxone (Narcan). Here are details on how to access it and use in case of an overdose:

To Obtain Narcan from a Pharmacy:

• Patient can express interest in getting Narcan to any staff member
• One of the clinical pharmacists will call them into a MTM room to go over a short intake form and to train the patient on how to use it
• Once the counseling portion is complete, the prescription is filled out and filled by the pharmacy which takes ~15 minutes

To Obtain Narcan from CRS:

• Patient can express interest in getting Narcan to any staff member
• The staff member then goes through the OEND questionnaire and provides training on proper use
• Once the counseling is complete, the patient leaves with a box of Narcan.
• Obtaining Narcan in CRS is not processed through a patient’s prescription insurance (sometimes patient’s want Narcan but do not want their insurance company to know).

Together we can end overdose and overdose related deaths.