NEW RESOURCE! Hospitals & Community Health: Moving Beyond the Numerical Tally
/Greetings to all as we enter a new decade!
While there are immense challenges in our midst, we are grateful for the emerging recognition among leaders across the country that we must do much more to address the profound structural inequities in our society. The recent New England Journal of Medicine Study (1) examining the impacts of the Camden Coalition’s hot-spotting interventions highlights the limits of models that focus on wrap around services for individuals, but do not address larger issues of food access, housing insecurity, early childhood education, a lack of social mobility, wage inequity, and racism.
We share ownership for these challenges, as well as for the design and implementation of solutions that address them at scale. This requires leadership by our hospitals and health plans, often among the largest employers in our communities, as well as by other leaders across the private and public sectors.
Leadership in this context requires a commitment to look at our health and socioeconomic challenges in terms of numerators and denominators, so we share an understanding of the size of our problems and what is needed to effectively address them.
When we read a positive story about the impact of a small scale intervention on a particular individual, it should do more than give us a temporary warm feeling inside – it should drive us to ask and answer how we better align and focus our efforts to produce measurable and sustainable impacts at the community and societal level.
With these goals in mind, at the Center to Advance Community Health & Equity (CACHE) we have just released a new resource:
Hospitals & Community Health: Moving Beyond the Numerical Tally
This guide is intended to serve as a resource for community stakeholders, regional philanthropy, and public officials who use data from the Community Benefit Insight (CBI) Tool, a searchable platform with tax-exempt hospital data from IRS Form 990 Schedule H. It is intended to help us move beyond simple comparisons of expenditures by tax-exempt hospitals, and towards a more thoughtful and collaborative approach to analysis, engagement, and improving health in our communities.
We at CACHE are standing by to support generative, evidence-informed dialogue among diverse stakeholders at the local and regional level across the country, using the CBI and related tools and resources to better leverage your time, treasure, and talent.
Kevin Barnett, DrPH, MPH, MCP
Founding Director, The Center for Community Health & Equity
Finkelstein A, Zhou A, Taubman, S, and Doyle J, “Health Care Hotspotting – A Randomized, Controlled Trial,” New England Journal of Medicine, 2020; 382:152-162.