Hospitals

Hospitals Can Be Key to Healthy People, Healthy Economies

Johnny Magdaleno
Next City

Democracy Collaborative is highlighted in Next City "With the U.S. medical care industry spending more than $340 billion on goods and services every year, health systems and hospitals have the type of money that could revitalize the communities where they save lives." 

Hospitals Aligned for Healthy Communities: Inclusive, Local Hiring

David Zuckerman and Katie Parker

Every day, we learn more about how patients’ health outcomes are tied not only to the healthcare they receive but also to the conditions in the communities where they live. Social and economic inequities, amplified by race, often emerge as the leading factors explaining differences in health outcomes and life expectancies.

Through local and inclusive hiring, health systems can invest in an ecosystem of success that lifts up local residents; helps create career pathways for low-income, minority, and hard-to-employ populations; and begins to transform neighborhoods. In the process, health systems can develop a more efficient workforce pipeline, meet sustainability and inclusion goals, and ultimately improve the health of their communities. Establishing a local and inclusive hiring strategy is an important first step towards rethinking your health system’s role in the community. This toolkit can help you get started.

UNM Health Sciences launches 'hire local, buy local' initiative to boost economy

The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, with the support of The Democracy Collaborative, initiated the Healthy Neighborhoods Albuquerque initiative to spur local economic development. The initiative includes growing local jobs, supporting local agriculture and providing better access to healthy foods. Read more about UNM Health Sciences launches 'hire local, buy local' initiative to boost economy...

ABQ hospitals behind initiative to hire, buy and develop local

Marissa Higdon
Albuquerque Business First

This article highlights an exciting partnership developing in Albuquerque, New Mexico among universities, hospitals, and local government that will help align healthcare institutions' resources toward community local hiring and sourcing. The inspiration for this alliance lies in Cleveland, Ohio with the Evergreen Cooperatives, a group of worker cooperatives pioneered by The Democracy Collaborative in the effort to democratize the local economy:

Hospitals lead ‘Healthy Neighborhoods’ initiative

Jessica Dyer
Albuquerque Journal

Several large anchor institutions in Albuquerque, New Mexico have adopted the local procurement practices pioneered in Cleveland, Ohio by The Democracy Collaborative and the Evergreen Cooperatives, helping galvanize the hospitals' resources and purchasing power to redirect wealth and health toward the community:

New initiative provides tools for health systems to re-invest in impoverished communities

Steven Ross Johnson
Modern Healthcare

The Democracy Collaborative's initiative to align hospitals in an effort to improve community health by increasing local hiring practices is taking root in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the city engages with a team of large healthcare institutions committed to promoting and utilizing the strategies in the toolkits released as part of the initiative:

Eleven Principles For Creating Health

Pritpal S. Tamber
The Creating Health Collaborative

While the bio-medical definition of health focuses on the absence of disease, when asked what makes them feel healthy, communities often identify many other factors ranging from financial security to nourishing relationships. This new report from the Creating Health Collaborative, an international community of innovators, puts forth principles for “creating health beyond healthcare” and identifies key drivers shifting the field. Notable principles include embracing complexity, measuring what matters, acknowledging power imbalances, and sustainability. The report is drawn from the Creating Health Collaborative’s July 2015 convening. 

The Role of Anchor Institutions in Restoring Neighborhoods: Health Institutions as a Catalyst for Affordable Housing and Community Development

Janet Viveiros and Lisa Sturtevant
National Housing Conference

While the bio-medical definition of health focuses on the absence of disease, when asked what makes them feel healthy, communities often identify many other factors ranging from financial security to nourishing relationships. This new report from the Creating Health Collaborative, a national community of practitioners, puts forth principles for “creating health beyond healthcare” and identifies key drivers shifting the field. Notable principles include embracing complexity, measuring what matters, acknowledging power imbalances, and sustainability. The report is drawn from the Creating Health Collaborative’s July 2015 convening:

Field Guide: The Future of Health is Local

Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE)
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies

This field guide, produced by The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) in partnership with Kaiser Permanente, connects the dots between the social determinants of health and the framework of strategies that both BALLE and MIT's Presencing Institute have identified as the path forward in building thriving local economies:

How Hospitals Can Help Heal Communities

Ted Howard and Tyler Norris
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

In this article for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's blog, Democracy Collaborative President Ted Howard and Kaiser Permanente Vice President for Total Health Partnerships Tyler Norris discuss the immense potential of hospitals to build wealth in their surrounding communities. In the article, Howard and Norris delve into issues addressed in their co-authored report, Can Hospitals Heal America's Communities?. The Build Health Places Network also featured the article on their blog.

Growing Healthcare’s Anchor Mission

Public Health Institute web forum focuses on ways that hospitals and health systems can—and must—leverage their business practices to improve community health
University Hospitals, Cleveland OH

18% of U.S. GDP is dedicated to healthcare. To some, this statistic might make the idea of healthcare transformation a daunting prospect, but to Tyler Norris, Vice President of Total Health Partnerships at Kaiser Permanente, it is an opportunity: “18% of our GDP can become part of driving the economic, social, and environmental drivers of health,” Norris explained excitedly on a recent Dialouge4Health web forum hosted by the Public Health Institute. Read more about Growing Healthcare’s Anchor Mission ...

Making the Case for Linking Community Development and Health

Edmonds et al

This report, published in partnership by the Center on Social Disparities in Health, the Build Healthy Places Network, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is a "resource for those working to improve low-income communities and the lives of the people living in them." Despite growing recognition that social and economic conditions are the primary drivers of health, the fields of community development and public health remain siloed. This new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Build Healthy Places Network outlines specific opportunities to integrate the two fields and overcome barriers to collaboration. It also includes recommendations on how to measure the impact of cross-sector collaborations and refine programs accordingly.  

Stepping Up to Make a Difference: The Vital Role of Anchor Institutions in Community Health Improvement

January 27th, 2016

Ensuring lasting community health and equity calls for innovation, collaboration and a multifaceted approach that addresses underlying determinants of health, including economic conditions. From hospitals and health systems to universities, ‘anchor institutions’ are organizations with deep roots and longevity as major employers in their communities. This Web Forum will feature a keynote presentation by leadership from University Hospitals Cleveland and a moderated panel discussion by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with insights about the benefits they see in this approach. Read more about Stepping Up to Make a Difference: The Vital Role of Anchor Institutions in Community Health Improvement...

Hospitals adopt anchor institution economic development strategies

Betsy Taylor
Catholic Health World

David Zuckerman, the Democracy Collaborative's Healthcare Engagement Manager, speaks with Catholic Health World about how and why hospitals and health systems are devising anchor institution strategies to strengthen local economies. 

Community Health Network

Based in Indianapolis, Community Health Network (Community) is a nonprofit healthcare system with 200 sites across central Indiana.  Since beginning to conduct Community Health Needs Assessments in the 1990s, Community has recognized the importance of addressing social and economic factors that impact health. One initiative is Project Search/Indiana, a high school transition program for students with disabilities that provides participants with worksite-based training.  Initiated in 2006 with an investment of $92,000, Community also supported an Individual Development Account program designed to help area residents build assets through matched savings.  To promote nutrition, Community sponsors farmers’ markets in neighborhoods and within its hospitals, helped develop the Community Heights garden where it maintains a medicinal herb garden, and provided technical assistance to the Indy Food Co-op, which opened the city’s first community-owned grocery store, Pogues Run Grocer, in a food desert at the end of 2010.

Improving Community Health through Hospital – Public Health Collaboration: Insights and Lessons Learned from Successful Partnerships

Lawrence Prybil et al.

A new IRS requirement that tax-exempt hospitals conduct community health needs assessments encourages hospitals to work collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders. The authors of a recent report, published by the Commonwealth Center for Governance Studies, Inc., argue that this federal mandate presents an opportunity to improve community health and reduce health care expenditures. The report offers several case studies of effective and sustainable partnerships in California, Minnesota, Maryland, Florida, and elsewhere throughout the country. 

Eds, Meds, and the Feds How the Federal Government Can Foster the Role of Anchor Institutions in Community Revitalization

Tracey Ross
Recognizing that anchor institutions are the largest employers in 66 of the nation’s 100 largest cities, mayors across the nation are working with universities and nonprofit hospitals to foster economic growth in disinvested communities. In this new report from the Center for American Progress, author Tracey Ross explores how federal officials can further enhance the role of such anchor institutions in promoting community economic development. She recommends the use of a framework based on The Democracy Collaborative’s Anchor Dashboard to hold anchor institutions accountable and to help illustrate to Congress and other stakeholders the extent of their impact in communities.

Fostering the Power of Universities and Hospitals for Community Change

New federal policy strategies can help cities leverage the economic might of their anchor institutions to benefit communities

Crossposted from Talkpoverty.org blog - a project of the Half in Ten Education Fund, a project of the Center for American Progress.

Communities across the country are recognizing the tremendous resources nonprofit anchor institutions—such as hospitals and universities—can provide as engines of inclusive and equitable economic development. Increasingly, cities—often led by Mayors—are launching comprehensive strategies to leverage these institutions to address challenging problems of unemployment, poverty, and disinvestment. In 2014, several cities, including Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans, have launched community building and job creation strategies that revolve around anchor institutions; and in Cleveland, a decade old collaboration of philanthropy, anchor institutions, and the municipal government continues to rebuild economies in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.

Case Study: Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH)

David Zuckerman
Hospitals Building Healthier Communities: Embracing the Anchor Mission

Despite Cleveland Clinic’s global presence, the vast majority of the system’s operations are based in Ohio, where the system is the largest employer in the northeast part of the state and second largest in the state. Cleveland Clinic’s main campus alone employs more than 26,000 people, has revenues of nearly $4 billion, and procures more than $1.5 billion in goods and services annually. In recent years, it has adopted a variety of anchor strategies, including shifting a percentage of procurement locally and to minority-owned businesses, participating as an anchor partner in a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization effort, implementing childhood wellness programming in local school districts, and positioning itself as a leader in sustainability.