Community Benefits Program

Our communities are at the heart of all we do. That’s why we extend our care and services beyond hospital walls to connect directly with people in our local neighborhoods.

What Are Community Benefits?

As a not-for-profit hospital system, UMass Memorial Health provides community benefits to improve health in your communities and increase access to health care.

Community benefits are programs and services that respond to identified community needs and address gaps among disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. Working in collaboration with community organizations, social agencies and public health partners, our UMass Memorial Health hospitals use combined resources and funds to plan and implement programs that meet these community needs.

Our Community Benefits Mission

UMass Memorial Health is committed to improving the health status of all those it serves and to addressing the health problems of the poor and other medically underserved populations. In addition, nonmedical conditions that negatively impact the health and wellness of our community are addressed.

Our mission is based on the World Health Organization’s definition of health: a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease.

Our Community Benefits Programs focus on ethnically diverse, inner-city, low-income populations. Community benefits target populations are identified through a community input and planning process, collaborative efforts and a 2021 Greater Worcester Community Health Needs Assessment, which is conducted every three years. The 2015 CHA and subsequent Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) and 2021-2026 Greater Worcester Community Health Improvement Plan (also viewable as an interactive webpage) focus primarily on the city of Worcester and the outlying communities of Grafton, Millbury, Shrewsbury and West Boylston.