Dimagi Partners with City of Somerville to Enhance Public Health Operations

Technology investments will immediately improve administrative efficiency while supporting future public health initiatives

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The City of Somerville Health and Human Services Department announced its partnership with Dimagi, a technology partner for public and community health, which will create a comprehensive health data management software to improve public health delivery. As part of this regional initiative, supported in part by the Massachusetts Department of Health, Somerville will implement Dimagi's CommCare—a secure and versatile digital health platform—for use by community health workers (CHWs) and public health nurses (PHNs) in Somerville and the neighboring cities of Arlington and Medford. This implementation will streamline operations by reducing duplicative and inefficient data entry while ensuring secure, up-to-date client consent to safeguard patient privacy. The platform will also empower Somerville to analyze data for informed decision-making, guiding future budget planning, resource allocation, and addressing both chronic and emerging health challenges.

"Our city has a passionate public health workforce, and our CHWs and PHNs are second-to-none. Unfortunately, we don't currently have the digital tools to help these critical health workers do their jobs to the best of their ability," said Kelley Hiland, deputy director of health and human services, public health for the City of Somerville. "Dimagi's human-centered platform will help make their work faster and more effective, while protecting sensitive health data and allowing our program to grow in the future."

Somerville CHWs and PHNs will use CommCare to create standardized registration and intake processes that will be faster and more efficient than current workflows. The platform will allow nuanced client consent capture and role based permissions to ensure the right data is shared with the appropriate teams. CommCare will also enable these workers to create and track referrals outside of HHS to connect clients to the resources they need. Moving forward, as legislation for reimbursement of community health services shifts, the platform can aid in reporting and billing processes.

"We're excited to work with Somerville to supply its community and public health workers with the tools needed to support their efforts in tackling pressing public health challenges," said Jonathan Jackson, CEO at Dimagi. "Community health resources are becoming more important to our nation's health, but these nascent or under-resourced programs struggle without the right technologies in place. What's more, a nationwide shift towards reimbursing these services has many cities and states scrambling to make sure they collect the right data to safeguard reimbursement. Somerville's thoughtful and proactive approach to supplying the right tools now, with an eye towards the future, will set their workers and community up for success down the line."

Dimagi's work with Somerville is the second recent deployment of CommCare in Massachusetts. In 2023, Island Health Care, a federally qualified health center, partnered with Dimagi to support its public health workers and improve digital connectivity and care efficiency.

About Dimagi

Dimagi is a global social enterprise that powers impactful public health work through innovative and scalable digital solutions and services. Founded in 2002 out of MIT and Harvard Medical School's joint division Health Science Tech, Dimagi is globally recognized as the maker of CommCare, the most widely-deployed digital platform that empowers a range of critical health programs, from public health and behavioral health to infectious disease management and more. CommCare has provided proven, customizable applications to over 3,000 projects worldwide, helping thousands of frontline workers, governments and NGOs deliver care and enable stronger health outcomes in their communities. One of the first Certified B Corporations established in Massachusetts, Dimagi has partnered with 24 states across the U.S. to improve public health initiatives domestically. Learn more at https://dimagi.com/us-health.

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SOURCE Dimagi, Inc.