Photo I Mica Kanner-Mascolo
Moses Dixon, president and CEO of Senior Connection, speaks at a press event Thursday.
August 2, 2024
Central Mass. Agency on Aging rebrands to mark 50th anniversary, launching mobile health service
Photo I Mica Kanner-Mascolo
Care Express, Senior Connection's new mobile health service, will hit the road in September.
Photo I Mica Kanner-Mascolo
Waiting area inside Care Express
Photo I Mica Kanner-Mascolo
The room patients where will receive medical services inside Care Express
Photo I Mica Kanner-Mascolo
Conference room inside Care Express
As the Central Massachusetts Agency on Aging in Worcester looks to celebrate its 50th anniversary serving older adults in the region, the nonprofit has officially rebranded, changing its name and unveiling a new mobile health service hitting the pavement come fall.
CMAA will now operate under the name Senior Connection, a title better communicating the ethos of the organization, said Moses Dixon, president and CEO of Senior Connection in an interview with WBJ during the nonprofit’s press event on Thursday.
Inspiration for the name change came from a number of observations made by Dixon and his team during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an organization providing health and wellness services and resources to older adults, caregivers, and grandparents raising grandchildren, the pandemic highlighted aspects of Senior Connection needing improvement, and Dixon found it was difficult for people to say the lengthy name Central Massachusetts Agency on Aging. With the organization’s 50th anniversary approaching, it felt like a natural time to reintroduce Senior Support with a name that better communicated what the organization had to offer the community, he said.
“The Senior Connection piece was very easy for us because we're all about connecting older adults to services, whether it's Meals on Wheels, whether it's the home repair, whether it's health and dental screening. So Senior Connection was fitting for us in terms of prompting the name change,” said Dixon.
The inspiration for Care Express, the nonprofit’s new mobile health service, was prompted by the effects of COVID. Senior Connection conducts yearly needs assessments for older adults in Central Massachusetts, and post-pandemic, the assessment showed the two greatest issues faced by seniors were accessing dental and medical screenings once practices started opening back up.
To help mitigate these issues, Dixon turned to what he said is a growing trend in the U.S., but one that typically isn’t geared towards older adults: health services on wheels.
“There's this big move on health mobile services in general, but not for older adults. We are focusing on older adults because they tend to be the ones that don't participate in those mobile health services that much and so we thought, well, we should just create one,” said Dixon.
Care Express will offer health, dental, and vision screenings, overall health information and referral services, and medication management.
Medication management is a prominent issue in the community, said Dixon. Time and time again, Dixon said caregivers and children of older adults will call Senior Connection asking for resources because their patient or parent has made mistakes with taking their medications. He sees Care Express as a way his organization can bring those resources directly to the community.
“We do have partners like with the Mass. College of Pharmacy that teach older adults and families about medication management. But, that is in sort of a [stationary] physical space, but we want to take these types of services to the community directly,” said Dixon.
Since the services initially offered will be preventative, Dixon said patients will be able to utilize care without insurance. But it’s possible later on that they will start to offer more intensive work, in which case the need for insurance will be revisited.
Care Express is expected to hit the road in September, traveling to the 60 senior centers Senior Connection is partnered with along with other community based organizations.
“It’s going to have a tremendous impact,” said Dixon.
Senior Connection generated $5.69 million in revenue in 2022 and had $4.2 million assets at the end of that year, according to nonprofit financial tracker Guidestar.
Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare and diversity, equity, and inclusion industries.
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