PATH is Growing Local Partnerships and Strengthening Services for Members

For more than 20 years, Lifespring Home Nutrition has provided Southern Californians with special dietary needs access to nutritious, medically tailored meals (MTM) to heal their bodies and manage their chronic health conditions. 

Since 2022, Lifespring Home Nutrition has been a Providing Access and Transforming Health (PATH) Collaborative Planning and Implementation (CPI) participant in the Orange County collaborative and, more recently, in the Los Angeles and San Diego collaboratives.  

Cathleen Anthony, Lifespring Home Nutrition’s owner, shared how her organization is fostering new partnerships and learning how to better serve her community through the PATH CPI initiative.  

“We wouldn’t be such a successful leader in the MTM space if it weren’t for PATH. Besides it being great for Medi-Cal transformation, businesses can get to know all of their local organizations. It’s amazing for building partnerships, creating jobs together, and seeing where counties, cities, and the state can lean on each other and fill any gaps. Learning sessions, access to decision makers in other organizations, and the ability to connect with health plans have all been invaluable to our organization. 
 
“We applied for more PATH funding opportunities and secured an amazing grant through our partner Medi-Cal managed care plan (MCP), which was truly helpful in reaching our mutual goals. We appreciate the opportunity to work directly with our MCP to identify and discuss issues to improve the initiative.  

“DHCS has done well with developing collaboratives and selecting facilitators. Through these networks, I have completed educational webinars on trauma, obesity, CalFresh, and Leah’s Pantry, which designs and delivers trauma-informed nutrition security initiatives that contribute to nourished communities. Each collaborative has so many different resources that have truly benefited our organization.  

“In our first year, we served around 250 people a week. The number increased to 450 people a week in our second year. Now, Lifespring Home Nutrition provides medically tailored meals to almost 700 individuals weekly. I can’t tell you how many customers share that we ‘saved their lives’ with the meals. They say even their doctors notice a positive change in their health. 

“We have hundreds of testimonials of true health transformations, and we are so grateful to make a difference in our community. With support from PATH, we look forward to continuing to help our customers age in place and keep their independence, show them how to care for their health through food, and offer the dignity of choice with our drivers, customer care team, and registered dietitians. 

“Anything that gets all of us working together to create a network is beyond helpful for the success of Medi-Cal transformation. Going into this next growth phase for our new contracts and counties, we feel prepared and able to help make things go more smoothly in the year ahead.”