The Stronger & Healthier communities through INtegration of Emerging Health Tech program (SHINE-HT) is designed to help Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) in Massachusetts adopt health tech solutions that support their workforce and improve their care delivery. AI and other health tech solutions are rapidly changing the way health care is delivered by helping to reduce administrative burdens, increasing access to care and improving patient-provider communication. 

However, these solutions are often not designed with the unique needs of underrepresented and underserved patient populations and their care providers in mind. Additionally, the FQHCs who serve these patients have limited resources to evaluate, purchase and implement new health tech solutions. 

MeHI created the SHINE-HT program to assess FQHC’s health tech needs, identify and test implementations of health tech solutions to meet those needs, and provide incentive funding and consulting services to help FQHCs adopt and utilize proven health tech solutions. 

Listening Sessions

In September and October 2025, MeHI hosted listening sessions at five FQHCs across Massachusetts in collaboration with the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers. Attendees included administrative and clinical staff, senior leadership and patient representatives. The sessions offered an opportunity for MeHI to hear directly from FQHC staff and patients about existing technologies being used by FQHCs, pain points that can be supported by technology and the barriers they face to adopting new technology. From these sessions, MeHI identified six priority use cases aimed at testing health technology solutions to address specific FQHC pain points. 

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Pre-Qualification for Implementation Partners

Many FQHCs lack the resources to evaluate, procure and successfully implement new health technologies across their organizations. MeHI has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to pre-qualify organizations with experience in designing and leading implementations of health technologies for community-based health care organizations. 

MeHI anticipates pre-qualifying a group of Implementation Partners who will be eligible to receive funding to lead the design and rollout of pilot technology implementations at Massachusetts FQHCs through the SHINE-HT program. 

MeHI will award a fixed sum of $70,000 to selected Implementation Partners to complete the scope of services for each pilot implementation. MeHI anticipates funding one pilot implementation in FY26 and additional pilot implementations in future fiscal years. If successful, MeHI anticipates providing funding and support to scale the implementations to additional FQHCs in Massachusetts. 

Applications for Implementation Partners are due Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. 

Download RFP       Apply Here

Funding Opportunity for FQHCs

In early 2026, MeHI will solicit proposals from FQHCs in Massachusetts for the FY26 pilot of the SHINE-HT Program. Through a mini-bid process, MeHI will select one FQHC to conduct a pilot implementation of a health technology solution that addresses one of the identified use cases. Respondents to the mini-bid will identify which use case they want to implement and how it will help address their organization’s current challenges and priorities.  

MeHI will select one FQHC for the FY26 pilot. The selected FQHC will pick an organization from the list of pre-qualified Implementation Partners to lead the design and execution of the pilot implementation. The selected FQHC will also participate in the Technology Committee to research, evaluate, and select a health technology solution that is currently commercially available to support the selected use case. MeHI will award $80,000 to the selected FQHC partner. 

Applications will be made available to eligible FQHCs in January 2026.