April 2026 Newsletter

Speak Life! inspires bold action: keynote challenges us to build care, as new CEO Carol Tegas unveils a future that is stronger together

Participants learn how to make a raised garden bed.

The annual Speak Life! Health Equity Conference brought our region together around a clear message: health equity demands courage, honesty, and collective action. In his keynote address, Anthony M. Jimenez, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Rochester Institute of Technology, challenged attendees to recognize how “care” extends beyond clinical settings—and to build an “infrastructure of care” rooted in community, connection, and shared responsibility.

Closing the day, our new CEO Carol Tegas grounded that call to action in lived experience—describing her lifelong role as her family's medical translator and the real barriers that show up when language, culture, and systems don’t align. She emphasized that lasting change requires partnership: by recently uniting Common Ground Health, Rochester RHIO and Finger Lakes Performing Provider System (FLPPS) into a combined entity, we can pool strengths, deepen collaboration, and deliver greater impact—because, as the day's theme proclaimed, we’re stronger together.

From evidence to action: 2025 in review

Year in Review cover photo with Common Ground Health Health Coalition members

Our 2025 Year in Review is here. A snapshot of what’s possible when evidence meets collaboration, Common Ground Health–Rochester RHIO advanced health equity through data-driven strategy, trusted community partnerships, and scalable interventions across Rochester and the Finger Lakes.

Highlights include launching the Love from the Start campaign, a new dashboard for county health statistics, and two Spotlight reports—one on gun violence and another on the crisis of youth self-harm. We built a playground in a day, trained dozens of mental health professionals, and distributed thousands of Narcan kits to support overdose prevention. We also served 1.7 million residents across 14 counties, delivering 28 million Results Delivery messages, maintaining 99.89% Rochester RHIO uptime.

That's just part of the story. Everything we do is with and for the community.

Learn more about what we all accomplished, together.

Second regional HERO convening brings partners together to strengthen the path from screening to lifesaving support

Beatriz LeBron of Executive Director of The Father Tracey Advocacy Center.

(Beatriz LeBron, Executive Director of The Father Tracey Advocacy Center, above).

Last month in Geneva, Finger Lakes partners gathered for the second regional 1115 Medicaid waiver convening. It was a working session designed to improve how Medicaid recipients move from screening to real support and to identify feasible actions partners can implement over the next two to four months. The session occurred during a critical point for the waiver: as screenings increase, more needs are being surfaced—and in the Finger Lakes, most people screened report multiple needs. Stopping now risks reversing progress just as partners are improving workflows, strengthening trust, and expanding the pathway from screening to services.

“This help allowed me to get my head above water and stay there.” —Finger Lakes Medicaid member receiving waiver-supported services.

Learn more.

Better beginnings for Black moms and babies

In New York, Black women die during pregnancy and shortly after at five times the rate of white women—and the disparity isn’t explained by poverty alone. The good news: 78% of maternal deaths are preventable.

A new three-part discussion series from the Lawyers Coalition for Racial and Social Justice titled Better Beginnings for Black Moms and Babies will move beyond the “what is causing the disparities” to the “how do we fix them, and what can I do to help,” creating an opportunity for legal professionals, community partners and others involved in this work to align their efforts, reflecting the priorities of the community.

Common Ground Health-Rochester RHIO Chief Program Officer Dina Faticone will join a rockstar panel to help launch the series.