Year in Review

2020-2021

Welcome

Welcome

STRATEGIC PLAN &
RACIAL EQUITY ACTION PLAN

STRATEGIC PLAN &
RACIAL EQUITY ACTION PLAN

Fenway @ 50

Fenway @ 50

Response to COVID-19

Response to COVID-19

Healthcare

Healthcare

Education

Education

Research

Research

Public Health

Public Health

Advocacy

Advocacy

Events

Events

Supporters

Supporters

Boomerangs

Boomerangs

Your Care, Your Community

Fenway Health advocates for and delivers innovative, equitable, accessible health care, supportive services, and transformative research and education. We center LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC individuals, and other underserved communities to enable our local, national, and global neighbors to flourish.. Learn more by clicking on the sections above.

Message from our CEO

To Our Community Members,

Over the past year, Fenway Health marked its 50th anniversary in two ways that we expect will be remembered and remarked upon 50 years from now.

First, we applied five decades’ worth of knowledge and expertise gained in the provision of healthcare, study of science, and advocacy for health equity to the global fight against COVID-19:

  • Our scientists and researchers ran a Phase 3 clinical trial of the Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine and participated in the CoVPN 3502 COVID-19 antibody study to learn more about how antibodies can be used to potentially stop the spread of COVID-19. We partnered with other community-based organizations to ensure that participants in our research studies were racially diverse and representative of the communities we serve.
  • We launched a free COVID-19 testing site in Boston for our patients and a second one in Everett, open by appointment to anyone. We partnered with the state’s Community Tracing Collaborative on COVID-19 infection contact tracing, and our team brought multilingual Spanish, Vietnamese, and Portuguese capacity as well as experience working with LGBTQIA+ communities to that effort.
  • Our policy experts advocated for sexual orientation and gender identity data collection in COVID-19 testing and vaccination at the local, state, and federal level, and gained support from the Massachusetts state legislature’s Health Equity Task Force.

Second, we laid the foundation for success over our next 50 years by approving an ambitious strategic plan that centers racial equity and social justice in Fenway’s operations, care, and services; advances health equity among those Fenway serves; and pushes to dismantle and redesign systems that deprive BIPOC and other underserved people of the opportunity to be healthy and thrive.

  • We have set ourselves on a path to achieving these goals by hiring a new Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President of Racial Equity and Social Justice, Vice President of Communications, and Vice President of Resource Development and Donor Engagement who bring a wealth of professional acumen and lived experience to our executive management team.
  • We joined a broad coalition of health care providers, LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups, and patients as a plaintiff in an historic lawsuit challenging a decision by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to eliminate the broad protections against discrimination in healthcare that were put in place by the Affordable Care Act. Those protections had prohibited discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people; people who seek or have obtained reproductive health care, including abortion and other pregnancy-related treatment; patients with limited-English proficiency, immigrants; and people living with HIV and other chronic illnesses. We were compelled and proud to take a stand on behalf of some of the most marginalized and at-risk members of our community, advancing a core principle at the heart of our mission – that all people deserve access to care, and that LGBTQIA+ people are entitled to the same rights as all others in our society.

Through it all, our staff has continued to meet the needs of the people who count on us, and to deliver on our mission. By expanding our telehealth program to ensure continuity of care during the COVID-19 public health emergency, we were able to care for more than 34,000 patients in 38 states, and earned recognition from the U.S. Health Resources & Service Administration for being one of just 36 community health centers in the country that exceed national clinical quality benchmarks for chronic disease management and preventive care.

The year was enormously challenging, to be sure, and it called upon us to dig deep. But we were made for times like these. Our experience has affirmed that Fenway Health is just as nimble, resilient, creative, and innovative today as we were 50 years ago—and will be 50 years from now. When committed, resourceful people of good will come together in service to a common vision, anything is possible.

Thank you for being part of the Fenway Health community.