THE RESOURCE LIBRARY provides tools and resources to help essential hospitals and their partners implement community-integrated health care.
Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Environmental Best Practices Surgical Centers can Employ
This article explores 10 pilot program ideas for health care entities to create more sustainable operating rooms and surgical centers.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
U.S. Climate Change and Health Equity Indicators
This website was created to help people understand how climate change is impacting health in the United States and to describe progress in reducing impact on Health and healthcare systems.
It also includes indicators of progress in reducing greenhouse gas pollution associated with the health sector.
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Climate Vulnerability
Program Implementation
Climate Resilience for Healthcare Toolkit
This toolkit is designed for the multidisciplinary teams that participate in health care organizations’ emergency preparedness and resilience planning.
It provides evidence-based recommendations to increase organizational resilience to climate-related disasters and extreme weather events and includes case studies that illustrate real-world applications of these recommended actions.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Integrating Sustainability into Quality and Safety
Sustainability leaders at NYC Health + Hospitals published this insightful piece focused on lessons learned when integrating environmental sustainability into the quality and safety agenda.
This publication connects quality and safety to sustainability by detailing multiple examples through the lens of essential hospitals.
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Community Infrastructure
Strategic Planning
Equity Learning Lab Resources
The Equity Learning Lab provides useful tools and resources, including the Organizational Equity Reflection Too, to help organizations identify their next phase of equity work.
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Community Infrastructure
Workforce Capacity
Public Health Communications Collaborative
Public Health Communications Collaborative offers a resource library that can help health systems adopt effective messaging techniques to promote community engagement and healthy behaviors.
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Community Infrastructure
Workforce Capacity
Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement
This framework provides metrics for assessing meaningful community engagement and includes informational resources about community dynamics, assessment instruments, and impact stories of how groups have engaged their communities.
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Health Literacy
Workforce Capacity
Coalition for Trust in Health and Science Resource Library
The Coalition for Trust in Health & Science provides an expansive resource library across multiple domains.
Noteworthy resources include how to build trust with patients and preventing the spread of misinformation.
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Health Behaviors
Workforce Capacity
The National Center on Advancing Person-Centered Practices and Systems
The National Center on Advancing Person-Centered Practices and Systems has a range of activities including topic-specific learning collaboratives, monthly webinars, and a resource database to promote person-centered principles in the health care sector.
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Health Behaviors
Multisector Partnerships
The Principles of Trustworthiness
The Center for Health Justice provides 10 principles of trustworthiness to help health care providers strengthen their relationships with the communities they serve.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Climate Resilience Planning
Practice Greenhealth lays out a framework for climate resilience planning and provides important planning guidance and federal resources.
In addition, it offers examples of health systems’ finalized climate resilience plans throughout the country.
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Climate Vulnerability
Program Implementation
Delivering on Justice40
This report provides perspectives from state agency staff on the Justice40 initiative’s progress.
It details what federal agencies, technical assistance providers, and advocates can do to help communities access the federal funding available through the program.
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Climate Vulnerability
Sustainable Funding
Investments to Support Rural Health Care Providers
This resource, provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, details available tax credits and other funding sources for rural health care providers to reduce operating costs and improve resiliency.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Health Equity and Climate Resilience: Advancing Community-Driven Innovations
This webpage contains resources from the June 2024 Grantmakers in Health conference.
It includes materials focused on community-driven strategies at the intersection of health and climate, including community development, food systems, housing, and mental health.
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Climate Vulnerability
Program Implementation
Messaging at the Intersections of Climate Change, Health Equity, and Racial Justice
The Kresge Foundation created this resource card to aid organizations in effective messaging on the intersection of climate change, health equity, and racial justice.
It presents problems, opportunities, key message components, and lessons learned.
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Sustainable Funding
Issue Brief | Decarbonizing Healthcare: Clean Energy Projects under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund – Georgetown Climate Center
This issue brief from the Georgetown Climate Center provides background on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund programs.
It describes how they could support and finance clean energy projects at health care facilities in underserved communities.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Anchored by Health Care: Strategies for Health Systems
Health Care Without Harm provides a framework for health care systems, specifically anchor institutions, to build equitable relationships that strengthen community climate resilience.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Health Care Preparing for Climate Change | Commonwealth Fund
This article from the Commonwealth Fund reviews the importance of health care organizations’ resiliency following climate-related disasters and provides recommendations for how health can become more resilient.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
A Plastic Predicament: Rethinking Health Care’s Environmental Health Impact
Hilary Ong, MD, assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine at University of California San Francisco, provides important information on plastic pollution in the health care sector and how to reduce it.
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Climate Vulnerability
Sustainable Funding
Boston Medical Center Inflation Reduction Act Case Study
The Office of Climate Change and Health Equity released this case study on how Boston Medical Center used Inflation Reduction Act funding to partially finance their Clean Power Prescription Program.
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Structural Racism
National Faith in Action Guide on Maternal Health
This guide provides a comprehensive overview of the maternal health crisis in the U.S. and recommends strategies for pregnant people, their families, providers, and communities to combat this crisis.
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Structural Racism
HEAR HER Campaign
The Hear Her campaign supports CDC's efforts to prevent pregnancy-related deaths by sharing potentially life-saving resources and messages about urgent maternal warning signs.
CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health is committed to healthy pregnancies and deliveries for every person. The campaign seeks to encourage partners, friends, family, coworkers, and providers—anyone who supports pregnant and postpartum people—to really listen when birthing people tell you something doesn’t feel right. The campaign shares resources including posters, handouts, social media kits, videos, and articles to raise awareness of urgent maternal warning signs during and after pregnancy and to improve communication between health care providers and patients.
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Education
Workforce Capacity
Searching for Management Approaches to Reduce HAI Transmission (SMART)
Searching for Management Approaches to Reduce HAI Transmission (SMART): A toolkit of management strategies to reduce and prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs)
The Searching for Management Approaches to Reduce HAI Transmission (SMART) study, a five-year project focused on central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), created a generalizable management practice toolkit that can be leveraged in the improvement of other HAI outcomes. The SMART Toolkit is developed to empower managers of all levels and types (frontline managers, infection preventionists, clinical leadership, administrative leadership) to bring evidence-based best practices into their daily decision-making. Resources in this Toolkit can be used to focus on management strategies that will help prevent and reduce hospital-associated infections in hospitals and healthcare settings.
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Structural Racism
Multisector Partnerships
Anchor Institution Playbook
This playbook outlines how anchor institutions can build effective place-based partnerships with community partners to improve individual and family well-being and build equitable local economies.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Better Buildings Financing Navigator
This online tool explores financing options best suited to meet individual organizations’ sustainability goals.
It connects users to the Better Buildings Challenge Financial Ally community, which includes banks and lenders committed to investing in energy–efficient and renewable energy projects.
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Food Insecurity
Strategic Planning
Feed1st Food Pantry Toolkit
UChicago Medicine’s Feed1st food pantry system is an open-access, self-serve system that provides food to UChicago Medicine’s community at no cost.
This toolkit provides health organizations with information on food insecurity and health, as well as tools for success, financial considerations, potential challenges, logistics, and communication techniques for raising awareness
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Climate Vulnerability
Sustainable Funding
Sustainability Tax Incentives
This document details how health care organizations can leverage the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to fund sustainability projects, including sample projects for each tax incentive and key considerations.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Decarbonizing the Health Care System
This document, released by the Commonwealth Fund in collaboration with Deloitte, acknowledges the health care sector’s responsibility to mitigate climate change.
It provides multiple decarbonization strategies and breaks down current tax incentives for decarbonization activation and anticipated outcomes.
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Structural Racism
Multisector Partnerships
Social Determinants of Health in Medicaid and Medicare Policy
This policy brief discusses how HHS has leveraged its authority under Medicaid and Medicare to advance policies aimed at addressing SDOH and HRSN.
This policy brief outlines how the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under the Biden-Harris administration, has leveraged Medicaid and Medicare policy to address social determinants of health, and more specifically health related social needs. Read for more information and understanding on the Biden- Harris administration’s commitment to advancing health equity.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager Guide
This guide explains how to use ENERGY STAR’s Portfolio Manager to track energy and water use, waste and materials, and greenhouse gas emissions.
The Portfolio Manager can help health care organizations identify underperforming buildings, set investment priorities, verify efficiency improvements, and receive recognition for superior energy performance.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Better Buildings Emissions Reduction Framework
This framework was created to help organizations develop an actionable plan for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.
The tool provides solutions, measures, and a phased pathway to achieve emissions reductions. Featured resources include a low carbon pilot toolkit, climate action plans, and greenhouse gas accounting.
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Climate Vulnerability
Program Implementation
ASHE’s Energy to Care Dashboard Tool
The American Society for Health Care Engineering presents a no-cost sustainability dashboard designed to aid health care facilities with limited operating budgets and staffing.
The tool features customized information, data templates, energy and cost data widgets, and utility bill fault detection.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Climate Action Playbook
Health Care Without Harm’s Health Care Climate Council presents this interactive playbook that captures how hospitals define and implement climate solutions.
It provides multiple climate mitigation case studies focused on clean energy, healthy food, leadership, sustainable operating rooms, procurement, community resilience, infrastructure resilience, transportation, and waste management.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Analysis of Reusable Surgical Gowns
This study indicates that reusable gowns can reduce natural energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, and solid waste generation.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Environmental Assessments within Healthcare
HealthcareLCA’s repository compiles up-to-date research assessing the environmental effects of health care.
It features research articles on products and processes within multiple disciplines, data sources, and a helpful data dictionary.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Reuse Materials and Equipment
This webpage from Practice Greenhealth details how using reusable medical items to reduce waste can affect health care entities.
It provides details on specific supplies that can be reused and the financial implications of switching from single-use to reusable products.
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Structural Racism
Strategic Planning
Racism Hurts Moms and Babies
Racism is hazardous to the health of pregnant people and their infants. This resource provides recommendations on how to improve the health of moms and infants affected by structural racism.
The physiological impacts of racism on bodies are particularly evident for pregnant people and their infants. This resource created by the National Partnership for Women & Families in collaboration with the National Birth Equity Collaborative as part of the Saving the Lives of Moms & Babies series highlights the disproportionate effect of structural racism on Black birthing people and infants. This resource provides an overview of the issue and identifies ways to improve maternal and infant health by tackling the issue of structural racism.
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Interpersonal Violence
Multisector Partnerships
Intimate Partner Violence Endangers Pregnant People and Their Infants
Black, Indigenous, and other people of color are disproportionately harmed by IPV. This resource provides recommendations on how to preserve the health of moms and infants affected by IPV.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) increases risk of pregnancy complications and poor health for moms and babies. This resource created by the National Partnership for Women & Families in collaboration with the National Birth Equity Collaborative as part of the Saving the Lives of Moms & Babies series highlights the disproportionate effect of IPV on communities struggling with the burden of structural racism and other forms of inequity. This resource provides an overview of the issue and identifies ways to improve maternal and infant health by tackling the issue of IPV at the federal and state level.
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Structural Racism
Strategic Planning
Homelessness Hurts Moms and Babies
Housing insecurity is worsening and imperils pregnant people and their infants. This resources provides recommendations on how to improve maternal and infant health for people that are unhoused.
Access to stable housing has been identified as one the most important predictors of one’s health. This resource created by the National Partnership for Women & Families in collaboration with the National Birth Equity Collaborative as part of the Saving the Lives of Moms & Babies series highlights the disproportionate effect of housing instability on communities struggling with the burden of structural racism and other forms of inequity. This resource provides an overview of the issue and identifies ways to improve maternal and infant health by tackling the issue of housing instability.
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Structural Racism
Strategic Planning
Higher Temperatures Hurt Moms and Babies
Our climate is getter hotter and it risks the health of moms and babies. This resource provides recommendations on how to improve maternal and infant health affected by extreme heat.
This resource created by the National Partnership for Women & Families in collaboration with the National Birth Equity Collaborative as part of the Saving the Lives of Moms & Babies series highlights the disproportionate effect of climate change on communities struggling with the burden of structural racism and other forms of inequity. This resource identifies ways to improve maternal and infant health by tackling the rise of extreme heat.
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Climate Vulnerability
Sustainable Funding
America’s Essential Hospitals Climate Convening Resources
America’s Essential Hospitals has partnered with climate justice organizations to create a tailored package of resources health care organizations can use to implement sustainability practices.
Created in response to feedback received during the association’s Enhancing Climate Resilience and Mitigation C-Suite Convening hosted on Oct. 31, 2023, the package offers helpful information surrounding sustainability governance, the Inflation Reduction Act, and community engagement. It also features calculators organizations can use to calculate emissions and return on investment.
These resources were gathered by Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth.
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Structural Racism
Program Implementation
Systematic Treatment and Management of Postpartum Hypertension (STAMPP-HTN)
The STAMPP-HTN team at The University of Chicago Medicine developed a series of interventions to improve postpartum care for women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.
To reduce the morbidity related to preeclampsia at the University of Chicago, the Rana Preeclampsia Laboratory established the STAMPP-HTN (Systematic Treatment and Management of Postpartum Hypertension) program. This collaborative has multiple interventions including improvement in education for patients and staff through video learning, written discharge instructions and printed educational material that is given to all patients, free BP monitors, follow-up in a postpartum hypertension clinic specifically designed for these patients, and long-term follow-up care in a cardiology clinic. This program has shown great success in increasing postpartum follow-up adherence among patients. Their findings were recently published in Obstetrics and Gynecology and they recently received the 2023 Bernard J. Tyson National Award for Excellence in Pursuit of Healthcare Equity for this work.
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Transportation
Transportation as a Health Indicator
This CDC report presents the percentage of adults who lacked reliable transportation for daily living in the past 12 months in the United States, using data from the 2022 National Health Interview Survey.
Reliable access to transportation can make a difference in getting health care, especially for people who are older, have lower income, and don’t have insurance. Previous research suggests that a lack of transportation, especially among adults who are older, uninsured, and have lower incomes, leads to reduced access to health care, which may then lead to adverse health outcomes. Using data from the 2022 National Health Interview Survey, this CDC report describes the percentage of adults who lacked reliable transportation for daily living in the past 12 months by sociodemographic and geographic characteristics.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Health Care Delivery Systems Decarbonization Framework
New York University Stern Center for Sustainable Business provides this return on sustainability investment (ROSI) framework to help health care entities reduce carbon emissions.
The ROSI identifies eight decarbonization strategies that health care systems can use to make the internal business case for implementing decarbonization strategies, develop resilience, and increase financial value.
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Climate Vulnerability
Sustainable Funding
Quickfinder for Leveraging the Inflation Reduction Act for Health Systems
The Office of Climate Change and Health Equity provides this resource for health organizations to learn more about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
The resource outlines relevant IRA programs geared toward health systems, including tax incentives, direct pay provisions, and grants and incentives for climate resilience and lowering emissions, along with example use cases and advice for grant applicants.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Decarbonization Action Guide for Board Directors
Black Directors Health Equity Agenda and Deloitte Consulting LLP developed the Decarbonization Action Guide with support from the Commonwealth Fund to lead health sector board members toward decarbonization, su
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Health Equity’s Essential Role in Environmental, Social, Governance Conversations
In this guide, the Black Directors Health Equity Agenda educates board directors in the health sector on actionable steps to prioritize health equity within environmental, social, and governance (ESG).
The guide explains how ESG responsibilities are linked to health equity, details the board’s role in each ESG pillar, and includes case studies to inspire action.
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Strategic Planning
Prioritizing Health Equity in the Boardroom
Black Directors Health Equity Agenda and Deloitte Consulting LLP present this playbook on how board directors can more directly influence conversations regarding health equity.
It details how the director role affects health equity, domains of actions, and why health equity is crucial to business. The playbook also poses strategic questions to encourage conversations and actions and provides case studies that show success in improving health equity on a boardroom level.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Actions for Health Systems to Reduce Risk and Impact on Climate Change
In this blog post, the Commonwealth Fund explains how health systems can reduce their risk from and impact on climate change.
The blog details key actions health system leaders can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as understanding their emissions footprint, defining emissions targets, establishing governance mechanisms, identifying and activating decarbonization strategies, and measuring progress.
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Community Infrastructure
Program Implementation
Four Health Equity Priorities
American Hospital Association released four key health equity practices for health care systems, including essential hospitals, to prioritize when improving community and population health.
By following these recommendations, essential hospitals can minimize health disparities in the communities they serve.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Sustainable Healthcare Resource Center
The Joint Commission presents this interactive resource center for health care organizations at all levels of their sustainability journey to use as they strengthen climate resilience and mitigation strategies.
Resources include strategies, tools, and tips, as well as spotlights on leading organizations; examples of cost savings and return on investments; and other literature, websites, tools, templates, and calculators.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Climate and Health Outlook Portal
This tool from the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity is composed of interactive maps showing county-level, climate-related forecasts.
The forecasts include wildfire, extreme heat, and drought for the current month. It also includes data on factors contributing to negative health outcomes for individuals exposed to the forecasted climate events.
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Food Insecurity
Program Implementation
Feed1st Food Pantry Toolkit
This downloadable PDF includes expert knowledge and tips on how to successfully launch an open access, self-serve food pantry system in your organization.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Climate Resilience for Health Care and Communities
HCWH provides a strategic framework for health systems seeking to build climate-resilient organizations and communities.
This framework includes health system case studies and identifies strategies for engaging with the community to work toward equitable decarbonization and overall health.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Community Engagement Strategies for Health Systems
In this strategic guide, HCWH details how health systems can implement initiatives while deepening their engagement with community partners.
This guide offers three health care anchor engagement models and explores proven practices and recommendations for health systems moving toward those models.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Reducing Health Care Carbon Emissions
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality presents this action guide to help health care organizations reduce their carbon footprint and protect communities from climate threats.
This primer explains the six domains contributing to greenhouse gas emissions in health care and identifies measures to track progress and strategies to reduce emissions in each domain. It also includes case studies on health systems working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and a resource library to support implementation.
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Climate Vulnerability
Sustainable Funding
The Inflation Reduction Act and Health Care Climate Action
Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) breaks down how the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) benefits health care organizations.
Health care systems implementing clean electricity, clean transportation, energy-efficient buildings, resilience, and clean energy strategies can potentially benefit from this resource. The article also clarifies sustainability project financing and funding opportunities.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Sustainability Governance in Health Care
Practice Greenhealth released this helpful guide detailing how health care organizations can integrate sustainability into their organizational structure, processes, and governance to ensure longevity.
The guide includes case studies from health care organizations in Practice Greenhealth’s network.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Actions to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Climate Collaborative developed this list of key actions for hospitals and health systems to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
NAM recognizes health care systems as one of the largest consumers of resources and producers of waste and greenhouse gases. Hospitals can use this list to work toward decarbonization by identifying a starting point, establishing goals, and implementing high-impact interventions.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
National Academy of Medicine Carbon Accounting
The National Academy of Medicine Climate Collaborative offers this resource on how hospitals can practice carbon accounting as a climate resilience and mitigation strategy.
This webpage contains helpful guides and videos that explain carbon accounting, the different scopes of greenhouse gas emissions, how carbon accounting applies to each scope, and how health systems contribute to climate change. Essential hospitals can use this guide to measure, track, report, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Health Care Emissions Impact Calculator
Health care systems can use Practice Greenhealth’s Health Care Emissions Impact Calculator to develop a greenhouse gas emissions inventory.
The tool can also help track emission rates over time, identify the sources of greenhouse gas emissions within their systems, create plans to reduce all scopes of emissions, and understand the climate footprint of the organization’s supply chain. By measuring emissions using this calculator, hospitals can set goals and act to respond to climate change and improve health equity.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
A Practical Guide to Community-Based Disaster Planning for Health Care
Health Care Without Harm presents this guide for health systems to partner with their communities to prepare for climate disaster and mitigate climate change.
This comprehensive guide offers steps for engaging community partners and running community-based climate resilience exercises, templates and tools for engagement, and lessons learned from prior exercises. It will help hospitals and communities respond to climate vulnerability and prepare to withstand the effects of climate change.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Understanding Air Quality Toolkit
Public Health Communications Collaborative released this helpful air quality guide that includes baseline information on air quality standards.
This resource also includes how air quality contributes to health and safety measures to protect against poor air quality.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Climate Resilience for Frontline Clinics Toolkit
Harvard University partnered with Americares to produce a resource toolkit for clinical staff helping populations most affected by climate change.
The toolkit includes clinical guidance, action plans, tips, checklists, and other materials to protect patients, and it provides background statistics reflecting the effect of climate-related events on the health sector.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
United States Climate Resilience Toolkit for Health Care Facilities
The Department of Health and Human Services created the Sustainable and Climate Resilient Health Care Facilities Initiative toolkit to guide health systems to implement climate mitigation strategies.
The toolkit includes steps to resilience, framework, case studies, and integral background information that will help health care systems to build resilience against climate-related health risks.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Developing a Climate Resilience Plan for Healthcare Organizations
This document by the Department of Health and Human Services guides health systems and other stakeholders in developing climate mitigation and resilience plans.
The guide provides important elements to consider, such as community engagement, risk assessment, and collaboration with other health systems. The agency identifies each element and its importance and explains how they can be incorporated into plans.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Operational Framework for Building Climate Resilient Health Systems
The World Health Organization presents this operational framework for health systems considering implementing climate mitigation and resilience strategies.
This document includes 10 key components describing how health systems can prepare, prevent, and manage climate-related health risks.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
A Referral Guide to Protect Patients from Climate Hazards
This is a helpful tool that provides information on climate hazards and what resources are available to at-risk communities facing the brunt of climate change and what surrounding hospitals can do to help.
This guide contains background information on climate change, as well as information on government assistance programs available to patients, preparations for patients to take during climate hazards, and other data resources for providers to understand how climate change affects their population.
Climate change can affect the health of individuals and has a disproportionate effect on those in underserved communities. Essential hospital leaders can leverage the guide to mitigate climate-related threats to their patients and help the at-risk communities they serve.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
Health Sector Resource Hub
This resource hub contains pertinent information regarding implementation of climate mitigation and resilience strategies.
The Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE) of the Department of Health and Human Services created the Health Sector Resource Hub, which features resources, tools, and informational materials about climate resilience and mitigation strategies. This Resource Hub includes a collection of federal resources, a webinar, and multiple referral guides.
Essential hospital leaders can use this Resource Hub to implement changes toward climate mitigation, which will positively affect the communities they serve.
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Climate Vulnerability
Strategic Planning
The State of Climate Resilience and Climate Mitigation Efforts at Essential Hospitals
This report assesses the resilience of essential hospitals to extreme weather events and other effects of climate change and the steps they are taking to mitigate their contribution to this problem.
The report, The State of Climate Resilience and Climate Mitigation Efforts at Essential Hospitals, details how essential hospitals carry out infrastructure changes and work with community partners to build resiliency, as well as the challenges they face in this work. Essential hospitals are on the front lines of care for the people and communities most affected by the immediate and devastating outcomes of hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and other extreme weather. In this report, the Institute explores ongoing work by essential hospitals toward these goals and makes recommendations for policymakers and funders to support resiliency work.
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Climate Vulnerability
Program Implementation
Advancing Climate Resilience and Mitigation at Essential Hospitals
This report is a follow-up to the 2019 State of Climate Resilience and Mitigation Efforts white paper and revisits key recommendations for hospitals aiming to combat the the current climate crisis.
Essential hospitals can utilize Advancing Climate Resilience and Mitigation at Essential Hospitals report to learn how their hospital can effectively work on climate mitigation and resilience strategies. The report provides case study examples from three member hospitals: St. Luke’s Health System, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and the University of California San Francisco.
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Structural Racism
Strategic Planning
A Framework for Promoting Equity and Excellence in Healthcare
Raising the Bar: Healthcare’s Transforming Role is a framework for the healthcare sector to embrace and utilize all the levers, resources, and opportunities available to advance equity and excellence.
At the heart of the framework are five foundational principles for a transformed healthcare system: Mission, Equity, Community, Power, and Trust. The principles are at the heart the framework and outline commitments for healthcare to raise the bar comprehensively and holistically for equity and excellence. The principles are neither intended to be mutually exclusive nor expressed in any priority order.
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Structural Racism
Strategic Planning
Bringing Light & Heat: A Health Equity Guide for Healthcare Transformation and Accountability
This guide provides a needed framework to make health equity a core part of the organization’s mission effectively and with sustainable action.
Bringing Light & Heat: A Health Equity Guide for Healthcare Transformation and Accountability outlines a strategic process for leaders and managers of healthcare institutions to commit to, own, and advance health equity and racial justice (bringing light) and outlines key questions stakeholders can use to help hold these systems accountable for this critical work (bringing heat).
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Structural Racism
COVID-19
Policy Brief: Wide Spread Decline in Household Income During Covid-19 Pandemic Contributes To Food Insufficiency Among Families
The policy brief examines the pandemic's devastating impact on the economic security and well-being of families.
Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, this brief explores the impact of the decline of household income during the Pandemic on food sufficiency of families by race, gender, and ethnicity.
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Structural Racism
Strategic Planning
Health Equity Technical Assistance
Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services offers health equity technical assistance resources aimed to help health care organizations take action against health disparities.
The CMS OMH Health Equity Technical Assistance Program offers:
- Personalized coaching and resources to help you embed health equity into your strategic plan
- Resources on improving care for racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, individuals with limited English proficiency, sexual and gender minorities, and rural populations
- Data collection and analysis
- Help to develop a language access plan and to ensure effective communication with those you serve
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Structural Racism
Racial Justice Toolkit
The Office of Diversity & Inclusion at Atrium Health has resources to help individuals who are looking to take action to stop and prevent racial injustices.
Atrium Health’s Racial Justice Toolkit offers a curated compilation of resources for teammates and community members to advance their journey toward cultural competence.
Hospitals can share these resources for with staff to become a better friend, a better supporter and a better ally.
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Structural Racism
Program Implementation
Equity in Vaccination: A Plan to Work with Communities of Color Toward COVID-19 Recovery and Beyond
This plan focuses on strengthening the community’s role in equitable vaccination campaigns.
The plan includes tools and principles to create, implement, and support vaccination campaigns that work with BIPOC communities to address inequity.
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Structural Racism
HIT Systems & Analysis
Guiding Principles: Aligning Systems with Communities to Advance Equity through Shared Measurement.
The American Institute for Research in partnership with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation disseminated Guiding Principles: Aligning Systems with Communities to Advance Equity through Shared Measurement.
The report covers guiding principles to inform measurement that effectively aligns systems’ actions with the needs and priorities of the communities those systems serve, particularly communities that historically have been harmed the most by inequities.
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Structural Racism
Strategic Planning
Strategic Goals
Christiana Care outlines their strategic goals and commitment to inclusion and diversity via working towards transparency and accountability.
The Strategic Plan Goals focus on strengthening the workforce and workplace utilizing approaches to enhance recruitment, internal policies, and providing continuing educational opportunities.
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Structural Racism
HIT Systems & Analysis
Using Data to Reduce Disparities and Improve Quality
This funded brief by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on how health care providers can use data to reduce disparities and improve quality.
Essential hospitals can explore strategies that assist multi-stakeholder coalitions consisting of state Medicaid agencies, health plans, providers, and community-based organizations in organizing and interpreting data to improve health equity and reduce health care disparities.
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Structural Racism
Sustainable Funding
Leveraging Value-Based Payment Approaches to Promote Health Equity: Key Strategies for Health Care Payers
Essential Hospitals can develop equity-focused VBP approaches to support care delivery transformation, advancing health equity, and eliminating disparities in health care.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Center for Health Care Strategies, and The Institute for Medicaid Innovation produced a report identifying strategies to guide payers in developing equity-focused VBP approaches to mitigate health disparities at the state and local level.
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Structural Racism
21-Day Anti-Racism Challenge
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center adapted the 21-Day Anti-Racism Challenge.
Essential Hospitals can encourage staff to take 21 days to further their understanding of power, privilege, supremacy, systemic racism, oppression, and equity. The challenge includes suggestions for readings, podcasts, videos, observations, and ways to form and deepen community connections.
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Structural Racism
Strategic Planning
Action Plan
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center created an Action Plan is comprised of four sections working to improve health equity through anti-racism efforts.
Essential Hospitals can use this Action Plan to outline institutional and individual initiatives that will enhance health equity.
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Strategic Planning
The Role of Essential Hospitals in Combating Structural Racism: An Informational Brief
This new informational brief begins with a background on the impact of structural racism on patients, providers, and the community and a description of a workstream to combat structural racism.
America’s Essential Hospitals always has been guided by a vision of equity in health and health care. The Black Lives Matter movement has prompted institutions across the nation to re-examine their organizational practices and policies to better understand how institutional racism impacts their work and to make changes that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Many hospital systems grapple with their role in combating the history of racism to promote equity. This new informational brief begins with a background on the impact of structural racism on patients, providers, and the community and a description of a workstream to combat structural racism for America’s Essential Hospitals and its members. It concludes with a description of twelve activities hospitals already perform to combat racism and three actions similar associations are undertaking.
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Social Needs Screening
Program Implementation
Operational Guide for Essential Hospitals to Improve Complex Care
NYC Health + Hospitals, with support from the Commonwealth Fund, has developed an operational guide to identify, understand, and treat patients with complex health, social, and behavioral health needs.
Essential hospitals serving complex patients can use the actionable information in this guide to replicate and implement NYC H+H’s process, including operational resources from the health system’s complex care clinic at Bellevue Hospital Center.
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Strategic Planning
Checklist for Homeless Service Providers During Community Re-opening
This checklist is designed to provide homeless service providers with important considerations for service delivery as the surrounding community reopens.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention designed this checklist and additional resources to provide homeless service providers – many of whom have remained open during the COVID-19 pandemic – with a reminder of important considerations for service delivery as the surrounding community reopens.
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Housing Instability
Sustainable Funding
A Framework for COVID -19 Homelessness Response Responding to The Intersecting Crises of Homelessness and COVID-19
The purpose of this Framework is to provide guidance to communities on how to use designated funds strategically in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on homelessness.
This Framework provides guidance to communities on how to use approved funding sources for COVID-19 across a range of key public health and economic recovery strategies, to meet public health goals, to increase housing stability, and to prevent future increases in homelessness that result from an economic downturn – all with a racial justice and equity lens.
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Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
The Disproportionate Impact of COVID -19 On Black and African American Communities in The St. Louis Region
Mirroring racialized COVID-19 trends in other metropolitan areas, the report focuses on disparities in the prevalence of confirmed cases among Black & African American communities in the St. Louis region.
This research brief aims to quantify COVID-19-related health disparities in the St. Louis region using ZIP code-level data on confirmed cases and demographic composition. This report concludes with recommendations for future research and action steps that enable prevention, mitigation and healing.
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Multisector Partnerships
How Can Clinicians Catalyze Investments to Improve Community Health?
This article explores how clinicians can help keep patients healthy through supporting community investments that improves conditions that contribute to health risks, outcomes, and costs.
How Can Clinicians Catalyze Investments to Improve Community Health urge clinicians to utilize their unique position of collecting data and asking questions to support effective partnerships that address the root causes of poor health. This article discusses both how community investment can drive community health as well as how clinicians can help catalyze community investment.
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Strategic Planning
Why Pioneering Health Institutions are Investing Upstream to Improve Community Health
This brief highlights lessons learned about the motivations that drive health institutions to invest upstream in the social determinants of health.
Why Pioneering Health Institutions are Investing Upstream to Improve Community Health analyzes what motivates hospitals to address upstream factors and next steps hospitals can take, that have emerged through research. A follow up brief contains deeper exploration into these issues.
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Food Insecurity
Strategic Planning
Food Insecurity and Health: Overcoming Food Insecurity Through Healthcare-Based Interventions
Drawing from diverse expert input & patient experiences, this guide includes lessons learned, innovative & promising practices, as well as solutions to common barriers to address food insecurity in communities.
Food Insecurity and Health: Overcoming Food Insecurity Through Healthcare-Based Interventions provides essential hospitals a range of strategies to effectively intervene and assist individuals in their communities who may experience negative health outcomes from unstable access to food. The Guide’s detailed strategies and recommendations can be tailored for organizational context, resources, and need to facilitate and enhance food insecurity interventions and ultimately improve health outcomes.
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Strategic Planning
The State of Climate Resilience & Climate Mitigation Efforts at Essential Hospitals
This report assesses the resilience of essential hospitals to extreme weather events and other effects of climate change and the steps they are taking to mitigate their contribution to this problem.
The State of Climate Resilience & Climate Mitigation Efforts at Essential Hospitals: Findings and Recommendations from a Formative Evaluation report details how essential hospitals carry out infrastructure changes and work with community partners to build resiliency, as well as the challenges they face in this work.
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Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
MOVING FORWARD: A Guide for Health Professionals to Build Momentum on Climate Action
The resource provides guidance and tools to reduce energy use, build resilient clinics and health departments, and advocate for climate solutions that prioritize health and equity.
This guide is for health professionals at clinics, small healthcare practices, professional associations, and local health departments who want to lead on climate and sustainability. Essential Hospitals can play an important role as trusted messengers to engage their patients, peers, community, and policymakers on equitable climate solutions.
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Social Needs Screening
COVID-19: Homelessness and Housing Resources Webinar
This webinar discusses the effects of COVID-19 on homelessness and housing.
America’s Essential Hospital staff share federal updates and provide guidance to reduce the risk for and meet the needs of homeless individuals during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Dr. Margot Kushel presents Benioff’s Homelessness and Housing Initiative and the screening tools developed to assist and aid homeless individuals during the pandemic.
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Legal Needs
COVID-19
8 Things Every Medical-Legal Partnership Can Do Right Now to Respond To COVID-19
The National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership’s produced a resource to address challenges medical-legal partnership practitioners are facing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This resource addresses and provides tips to operational challenges including diminishing referrals due to providers’ focus on other medical needs, uncertainty about what issues to prioritize, and concerns about how to stay connected now that legal team members can no longer work on site. There is a note to those who are looking to start a new medical-legal partnership to meet the current crisis needs as well.
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Housing Instability
Recommended Strategic Approaches for COVID-19 Response for Individuals Experiencing Homelessness
This resource is a California-specific outline of protocols and recommendations for managing homeless populations during the pandemic.
Recommended Strategic Approaches for COVID-19 Response for Individuals Experiencing Homelessness, developed in partnership with Margot Kushel, MD and the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, provide instructions to ensure the homeless population is safe and secure during the COVID-19 pandemic. The recommendations work to navigate homeless induvials to the appropriate care or housing setting based on symptoms and exposure with a focus on prevention, reducing shelter density, establishing isolation units, staffing appropriate healthcare personnel, prioritizing individual housing units, continuing outreach services, forming clear communication mechanisms, and providing paratransit.
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Health Literacy
Recommendations for How to Overcome Common Barriers When Implementing Cost-of-Care Conversations
This podcast (the fourth of four) delivers recommendations for overcoming barriers to implementing cost-of-care into the clinical setting.
Tune in to hear the last episode in this 4-part series that provides clinicians with recommendations for how to overcome common barriers when implementing cost-of-care (CoC) conversations. Speakers will present actionable tips that primary care clinicians can use to help address potential barriers and challenges related to implementing CoC conversations in the clinical setting.
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Health Literacy
A Guide to Integrating Cost-of-Care Conversations into Workflow
This podcast (third of four) from Avalere Health provides actionable pathways for clinicians to integrate cost-of-care conversations into the clinical workflow.
Tune in to hear the third episode in this 4-part series that provides clinicians with actionable approaches for integrating cost-of-care conversations into workflow.Speakers will present 3 pathways that clinicians can use to best integrate cost of care conversations into their clinical workflows.
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Health Literacy
Quick Tips for Clinicians on How to Talk with Patients About the Expected Costs of Care
This podcast (the second of four) focuses on why clinicians should speak with their patients about expected costs of their care and provides actionable tips for how to structure those cost-of-care conversations
The second episode in this 4-part series provides clinicians with actionable tips and a simple framework for how to structure cost-of-care (CoC) conversations with their patients. Speakers will talk with about strategies that clinicians can use to discuss costs with their patients.
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Health Literacy
Why Do Cost-of-Care Conversations Matter?
This Practice Brief from Avalere provides you with information and data points to create buy-in among your peers and your organization’s leadership on the importance of cost-of-care (CoC) conversations.
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Health Literacy
Why Should Primary Care Clinicians Routinely Talk with Their Patients About the Expected Costs of Care?
This podcast (the first of four) from Avalere Health focuses on how and why clinicians and other care team members can improve the quality and frequency of cost-of-care conversations.
Tune in to hear the first episode in a 4-part series that focuses on how clinicians and other care team members can improve the quality and frequency of cost-of-care (CoC) conversations. To kick-off this series, they will present why clinicians should speak with their patients about the expected costs of their care.
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Food Insecurity
Webinar Recap: Interventions to Decrease Food Insecurity
This post recaps the webinar, Interventions to Decrease Food Insecurity, and answers all remaining questions.
This post recaps a one-hour webinar, Interventions to Decrease Food Insecurity, and answers all remaining questions. This webinar was hosted by America’s Essential Hospitals and the Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN) to learn how health systems nationwide are exploring ways to help mitigate food insecurity among their patient populations. In addition, the post answers supplementary questions from the webinar.
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Food Insecurity
Interventions to Decrease Food Insecurity
This webinar presents how health systems nationwide are exploring ways to help meet patients’ food insecurity needs.
America’s Essential Hospitals and the Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN) hosted a webinar to demonstrate how health systems nationwide are exploring ways to help meet patients’ food insecurity needs. Presented in this webinar are tresults from a systematic review of health care–based food insecurity interventions and a firsthand account of essential hospital’s experience delivering a food insecurity intervention. In addition, Lee Health, in Fort Myers, Fla., presented on how they developed and evaluated Flavor Harvest @ Home, a program designed to help meet the nutrition needs of patients living in food deserts.
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Workforce Capacity
Milestones for Community-Integrated Health Care at Essential Hospitals
This resource helps hospitals better understand the components of community-integrated health care and outlines specific action steps to expand previous work.
The resource outlines components of community-integrated health care into actionable steps for hospitals. This report should be used as a companion resource to Outside the Hospital Walls: An Update on Essential Hospitals’ Efforts to Improve the Health of Their Communities.
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Strategic Planning
Outside the Hospital Walls: An Update on Essential Hospitals’ Efforts to Improve the Health of Their Communities
This resource expands on the Essential Hospitals Institute's foundational research about essential hospitals’ work to improve Social Determinants of Health.
This report is based on results from a survey fielded to hospital leaders and interviews with hospital representatives, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The resource provides an update on essential hospitals addressing patient social needs, building capacity, forming and maintaining partnerships, advancing community health, driving community-integrated health care, and overcoming challenges. This report should be used as a companion resource to Milestones for Community-Integrated Health Care at Essential Hospitals.
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Transportation
Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
Health Equity Report Card
This website creates reports to show how each county is doing on a variety of health-related conditions compared to the rest of the state and nation.
The data in each report compares county statistics in housing, transportation, poverty, healthcare, mental health, environmental issues, and access to healthy food and active spaces. Essential Hospitals can use this website to understand their patient population and identify their community needs in regards to socioeconomic and health issues with a focus on equity.
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Housing Instability
Preserving, Protecting, & Expanding Affordable Housing A Policy Toolkit for Public Health
This toolkit provides information on housing market trends and research on the links between rising housing costs and poor health outcomes.
Preserving, Protecting, & Expanding Affordable Housing: A Policy Toolkit for Public Health identifies strategies across six policy areas to help ensure that households of all incomes have housing options in the areas where they want to live. Essential hospitals can advocate enabling affordable housing in their communities with these outlined policies.
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Multisector Partnerships
Complex Construction: A Framework for Building Clinical-Community Partnerships to Address Social Determinants of Health
This report is an initial framework for primary care providers to establish social needs screening and referral programs in concert with human services partners.
The report provides a framework for better integrating primary care and social services in urban communities. It delivers guidance on a variety of issues such as choosing a screening tool, developing a realistic workflow, identifying appropriate CBO partners, and building relationships. In addition, this report explores how these referral processes work in the “real world.”
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HIT Systems & Analysis
Community Resource Referral Platforms: A Guide for Health Care Organizations
This guide was developed to help essential hospitals understand the landscape of community resource referral platforms and learn from early adopters’ experiences using them.
Community Resource Referral Platforms: A Guide for Health Care Organization is based on interviews with representatives from 39 organizations. This guide explores and compares community resource referral platforms and provides lessons learned and recommendations for organizations. Platforms explored: Aunt Bertha, Charity Tracker, Cross Tx, Healthify, NowPow, One Degree, Pieces Iris, TAVConnect (TAVHealth), Unite Us.
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Legal Needs
A System-Level Approach to Addressing Health-Harming Legal and Social Needs
This case study examines the medical-legal partnership between NYC Health + Hospitals and LegalHealth and provides lessons learned for integrating these services to promote population health.
The partnership between NYC Health +Hospitals and LegalHealth offers a rich case study for other essential hospitals to learn about leadership buy-in, culture change, training, staffing, financial return on investment, and data reporting related to integrating a medical-legal partnership into the health system.
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Transportation
Confronting Transportation Barriers to Improve Health
Essential hospitals and health systems have a vested interest in and are uniquely positioned to drive population health improvements, particularly related to transportation barriers.
In this brief, America’s Essential Hospitals examines state policies, literature, and examples of programs at member hospitals aimed at preventing and reducing barriers to transportation. Support for this brief was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
KEY FINDINGS
- Access to transportation is a social determinant of health that influences health outcomes, affects access to health care, and intersects with other social determinants.
- Transportation barriers disproportionately affect low-income, vulnerable communities, contributing to health disparities.
- Essential hospitals are implementing efforts to reduce transportation barriers for their patients and communities.
- States offer eligible patients reliable transportation to and from health care appointments as a mandatory Medicaid benefit and have invested in transportation infrastructure to promote access to care and healthier lifestyles.
- Leveraging state resources to provide transportation for eligible patients can enable essential hospitals to target resources upstream, reducing transportation barriers at the community level.
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Workforce Capacity
Population Health Leadership at Essential Hospitals— A Toolkit for Hiring and Evaluating Population Health Executives
This toolkit details a core skill set and hiring considerations for population health executives and provides a template job description and skill assessment worksheets.
Essential hospitals can use this toolkit, developed with support from the Kresge Foundation, to build the workforce and leadership they need to cope with social, economic, and environmental factors while having the greatest impact on health in the neighborhoods they serve.
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Strategic Planning
Community Benefit Insight
Community benefit requirements play a large role in population health initiatives. With this resource, essential hospitals can access information about how other hospitals are leveraging these requirements.
Community Benefit Insight offers an online database of tax-exempt hospital community benefit spending information. Users can search for a specific hospital or browse by state. In addition, the website includes a compendium of resources for understanding and utilizing community benefit requirements, as well as additional tools from external organizations.
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Education
The Trauma, Health & Learning Connection in Schools
In this webinar recording, learn about the role schools play in addressing childhood trauma, and how this ultimately influences health.
Listeners will hear speakers discuss examples of successful practices on the state-level within California and explain why trauma-informed schools matter for health equity, learning and achievement. This webinar also provides an overview of the role that Medicaid plays in school-based services reimbursement. Essential hospitals can refer to this webinar as they develop and implement partnerships, programs, and evaluations within the education sector.
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Sustainable Funding
ROI Calculator for Partnerships to Address the Social Determinants of Health
This online tool assists medical providers and their community-based partners in creating mutually advantageous financial arrangements when collaboratively addressing the social determinants of health.
Essential hospitals can use this tool, with their partners, to account for specific costs and needs of their patient populations, and calculate financial returns for population health interventions. Those who use this tool are walked through a straightforward, user-friendly process which provides guidance on the type of data that will be needed to calculate returns. What’s more, after completing the process, a summary is provided of the calculation as it pertains to all partners.
This tool is currently in beta stages and will continue to be updated.
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Food Insecurity
Program Implementation
Delivering Community Benefit: Healthy Food Playbook
This online playbook comprises a suite of resources to support hospitals and community partners in developing community health interventions to address food insecurity.
Specifically, users can access a number of online tools under three main categories: community health needs assessment; implementation strategy; and evaluating, reporting, and communicating results. Essential hospitals will find the Playbook exceptionally helpful in learning more about the different types of models used to address food insecurity, as well as accessing case studies and research documents.
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Multisector Partnerships
Partnership Assessment Tool
This resource is designed to assist health care providers and their community-based organization partners maintain a productive, mutually beneficial partnership.
The Partnership Assessment Tool for Health (PATH) is an interactive document to be used in a conversation between partners. Specifically, PATH walks partners through three steps, including a Partnership Check-Up and Partner Discussion Guide. Essential hospitals will find this tool useful in facilitating open and honest dialogue around strengths, gaps, challenges, and opportunities with their community-based partners.
Additional population health tools can be found on the Nonprofit Finance Fund website, including more information about the PATH initiative from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Partnership for Healthy Outcomes, the Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Center for Health Care Strategies, and the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities.
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Housing Instability
Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
The Eviction Lab
From Princeton University, this online database provides statistics on evictions - a strong indicator of housing instability - at the community level.
Essential hospitals can use this free tool to better understand eviction rates in their communities, and produce custom maps, charts, and reports. In addition, the Eviction Lab website hosts additional resources, including educational videos and links to other related organizations.
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Interpersonal Violence
Program Implementation
Cure Violence Health Model
The Cure Violence Health Model has been implemented in cities across the U.S. and is proven to help reduce community violence. Now a full implementation guide is available online to help spread the model.
Essential hospitals can utilize this new implementation guide to implement the Cure Violence Health Model at their hospitals and in their communities. The resources available include monthly webinars, reference documents, and videos. In addition, the Cure Violence organization offers additional resources for understanding violence, the impact of violence on health, and evidence behind the health model.
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Interpersonal Violence
Essential Hospitals: Community Anchors in Violence Prevention
Essential hospitals and health systems have a vested interest in and are uniquely positioned to drive population health improvements, particularly related to interpersonal violence.
In this brief, America’s Essential Hospitals examines literature and examples of programs at member hospitals aimed at preventing and reducing interpersonal violence. Support for this brief was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
KEY FINDINGS
- Violence is a social determinant of health that affects health risks and outcomes for individuals, communities, and the hospitals who serve them.
- Interpersonal violence disproportionately effects vulnerable populations, youth, and those in metropolitan areas.
- Essential hospitals use population health approaches to combat interpersonal violence in the communities they serve.
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Social Needs Screening
Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
The Accountable Health Communities (AHC) Health-Related Social Needs
The Accountable Health Communities Health-Related Social Needs Screening Tool aids in identifying and addressing unmet health-related social needs of patients within a clinical setting.
Essential hospitals can use this 10-question screening tool to identify patient’s unmet health-related social needs within housing instability, food insecurity, transportation, utility, and interpersonal safety. Using the screening tool can help providers make appropriate referrals to hospital and/or community based services that can best address these needs.
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Transportation
Transportation and Health Tool
The Transportation and Health Tool (THT) provides access to data and strategies that examine the health impacts of transportation systems.
THT was created in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the American Public Health Association (APHA) to look at specific indicators from each U.S. state addressing how transportation can affect air quality, safety, active transportation, and connectivity to destinations. THT provides information to assist in understanding the relationship between transportation and health as well as addressing tactics to improve public health through transportation planning and policy. Essential hospitals can use the tool to examine transportation-related health indicators by state, metropolitan and urban areas, and to identify transportation strategies to help address those health concerns.
Check out how five unique organizations and hospitals used the Transportation and Health Tool to improve community health on APHA’s website.
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Health Behaviors
Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
CityHealth
CityHealth provides an interactive way to view and compare population health related policies in different cities across the United States.
The website can be sorted by city or by policy, with 40 major US cities to choose from. Users can view policies that are in place for topics such as healthy food procurement, tobacco regulation, and zoning for affordable housing. Bronze, silver, and gold medals are assigned to each city, and specific details about each healthy policy are provided. Essential hospitals can utilize this tool to view how their city ranks for a variety of population health related policies, and view recommendations for improving these policy areas.
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Health Literacy
Quick Guide to Health Literacy
This guide provides the information necessary for health care providers to better understand health literacy and become clear communicators with patients.
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Family & Social Support
Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
The Circle of Support Approach Organizational Self- Assessment
This self-assessment from SAMHSA allows hospitals to evaluate the current policies, practices, and systems at their organization that encourage patients to build and maintain their social network.
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Employment & Income
Strategic Planning
The Future of Health is Local: A Field Guide for Health Sector Leadership
This strategic guide from BALLE is designed to help health care institutions to align the non-clinical assets of their organization and improve local economy.
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Sustainable Funding
Financing Regional Health Transformation: A Primer for Changemakers
ReThink Health’s Financing Primer takes a broader look at health care financing, including the challenges and opportunities in today’s payment environment for population health.
Essential hospitals can walk through the six steps of the Primer to hear commentary from health care thought leaders, watch informational videos, and access resources for sustainable financing mechanisms. The online tool also encourages collaboration in this area and provides examples of community-wide financing arrangements.
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Food Insecurity
Food Insecurity, Health Equity, and Essential Hospitals
Food insecurity is a serious health problem for people and communities nationwide, with profound clinical consequences and a deep connection to sociodemographic factors that affect health.
This brief summarizes the challenges that food-insecure patients face and measures hospitals can take at the patient, system, and community levels to help create food security.
KEY FINDINGS
- Food insecurity is significantly associated with a number of physical and behavioral health outcomes.
- Poor health and food insecurity often exacerbate each other, perpetuating a cycle of chronic illness that contributes to high health care costs and utilization.
- Food insecurity disproportionately affects vulnerable populations and is driven by social, economic, and environmental factors.
- Essential hospitals have a unique opportunity and responsibility to address food insecurity to improve patient and population health.
- Hospitals can address food insecurity through screening, on-campus resources, community partnerships and engagement, and referral to nutrition assistance programs.
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Legal Needs
Multisector Partnerships
National Center for Medical-Legal Partnerships
The National Center for Medical-Legal Partnerships is a project dedicated to forming partnerships between health care and legal organizations to address patients’ needs.
Essential hospitals can use this resource to learn more about the ROI for addressing legal needs, explore other medical-legal partnerships operated by hospitals, and access educational and training materials. The project’s site offers several tools for addressing patients’ legal needs, including the Medical-Legal Partnership Toolkit, a messaging guide, a legal needs screening template, and more.
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Transportation
The Intersection of Health and Transportation
To what extent are transportation services related to the health and wellness of individuals? What role do essential hospitals play in transportation?
This webinar offered a discussion on how transportation services and health and wellness may be related and provides a glimpse into how two essential hospitals are addressing community transportation needs.
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Education
Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
The Children’s Health and Education Mapping Tool
This tool allows users to visualize child and adolescent health at the community level, as well as explore characteristics of school-based health centers and public schools, for data-driven decision making.
Essential hospitals can use this resource to create maps which highlight areas of need related to education and health. In addition, features in the tool allow users to map health care access points, public schools, and school-based health centers to identify potential partners. The mapping tool is a free resource offered by the School-Based Health Alliance, which also hosts several other resources for health and education on their website.
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Workforce Capacity
Best Practice Guidelines for Implementing and Evaluating Community Health Worker Programs in Health Care Settings
Community health workers (CHW) can play a vital role in patient and community engagement, and are increasingly being integrated into hospitals and health systems as part of population health improvement.
This report from Sinai Urban Health Institute – an affiliate of America’s Essential Hospitals’ member, Sinai Health System – aims to provide a comprehensive look at the CHW model and how to successfully incorporate CHW into the hospital and health system workforce. The evidence-based guidelines are presented through five sections, from hiring to evaluation, which cover all aspects of CHW integration. Essential hospitals can use these guidelines as they consider adopting the CHW model or revising current programs.
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Multisector Partnerships
A Playbook for Fostering Hospital-Community Partnerships to Build a Culture of Health
This playbook provides a step-by-step guide for engaging partners, collaboratively implementing population health strategies, and sustaining successful partnerships.
Essential hospitals can use this playbook to learn more about a “culture of health” and the value of partnerships, and as a workbook for population health collaboration. The document offers graphics, worksheets, templates, and more to walk users through every step of building and fostering partnerships.
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Community Infrastructure
Program Implementation
Building Healthy Places Toolkit
This toolkit offers strategies for enhancing health through changes to the built environment, specifically related to physical activity, food and water, and the environment.
Although originally intended for community development audiences, essential hospitals can use this toolkit to develop population health initiatives with urban planning partners. The toolkit provides 21 evidence-based recommendations for community health improvements through an interactive website and formal report. In addition, several case studies are featured on the site for examples of the recommendations in action.
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Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
Community Health Assessment Toolkit
This toolkit provides a step-by-step guide across nine elements of community health assessment.
Essential hospitals can use this toolkit to better engage their communities and assess community needs. As a generic guide, it provides a foundation for IRS regulated community health needs assessments (CHNA), but can be used by all hospitals and their partners. Each step is a quick and easy read which covers key components and strategies. Additionally, case examples are provided for some steps, as well as compendium of resources for the overall process.
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Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
Vital Signs: Core Metrics for Health and Health Care Progress
Vital Signs comprises a standardized set of 15 core measures aimed at yielding the clearest understanding of the health and well-being of Americans.
The measures are broken down into four categories – healthy people, high-quality care, affordable care, and engaged people – and can be applied at the national, state, local, and institutional level. Essential hospitals can use these measures to better understand the needs of their community and progress in population health improvement. The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) offers several resources for using Vital Signs, including reports, infographics, videos, and webinars.
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Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
Community Commons
Community Commons is an online resource center for analyzing and visualizing community data.
Essential hospitals can access the free tools on the site to develop maps and reports for their communities using social, economic, education, health, and environmental data. Such data visualization can provide context to community needs in a way that is easy to understand. What’s more, Community Commons encourages collaborative community initiatives and serves as a space to learn from and connect with potential partners.
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Community Infrastructure
Program Implementation
Improving Community Infrastructure: Lessons from Detroit
In this webinar, Henry Ford Health System shared how it's working to improve Detroit’s infrastructure through community revitalization programs.
Tom Habitz, an Urban Planning Specialist with Henry Ford Health System, discussed the diverse community development projects underway, how the health system engages its local community, and lessons learned from collaborating with local partners. In addition, Mr. Habitz provided an overview of Henry Ford Health System’s other initiatives to address the social determinants of health.
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Health Behaviors
Program Implementation
Park Rx
Park Prescriptions (Rx) are programs designed in collaboration among public land agencies, health care providers, and community partners to encourage people to utilize parks, trails, and open space.
The ParkRx website hosts a number of resources for developing park prescription programs. Specifically, essential hospitals can use the program toolkit for clinical providers which includes worksheets, videos, and other resources. Additional toolkits are offered for program partners such as public health, community organizations, and park departments. Essential hospitals can also access communication materials, educational webinars and reports, and numerous success stories.
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Food Insecurity
Program Implementation
Addressing Food Insecurity: A Toolkit for Pediatricians
This toolkit from the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) aims to help providers screen for food insecurity and connect families to food and nutrition resources.
Essential hospitals can use the toolkit as a step-by-step guide for incorporating food insecurity screening and intervention strategies into institutional workflow. Specifically, the toolkit provides helpful steps for educating staff, screening using The Hunger Vital Sign™ (a validated, AAP-recommended screening tool), and responding to patients’ needs.
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Interpersonal Violence
Program Implementation
Interpersonal Violence and Hospital-Based Intervention
This webinar highlighted the hospital role in community violence prevention and intervention, the value of hospital-based violence intervention programs, and resources for implementing such initiatives.
Founding members of the National Network of Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs (NNHVIP) – Youth ALIVE! and Boston Medical Center – discussed the core components of hospital-based violence intervention programs and provided examples from their own communities.
Access additional resources for hospital-based violence intervention programs at nnhvip.org.
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Social Needs Screening
Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
SIREN Evidence Library
The Social Intervention Research & Evaluation Network’s (SIREN) Evidence Library provides research articles, issues briefs, reports, and commentaries about addressing social needs in the clinical care setting.
Essential hospitals can use this research library to explore the evidence behind population health interventions, which can support community assessment, program design, and communicating return on investment. SIREN also provides resources for other population health strategies, such as screening for social determinants, metrics and evaluation, and grant writing.
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Multisector Partnerships
Practical Playbook
The Practical Playbook is a printed resource with an associated website aimed at helping public health and primary care collaborate around population health.
The paperback playbook hosts several expert strategies around public health-health care collaboration that may be beneficial to essential hospitals seeking to form community partnerships. In addition, the Practical Playbook website offers further resources and tools for successful partnerships, data utilization, sustainable funding, and other population health topics.
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Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
AGLH Hospital/Health System Self-Assessment Tool
From Alignment of Governance & Leadership in Healthcare (AGLH), this self-assessment tool can help hospitals/health systems prepare for population health.
The tool includes a seven-part, straightforward assessment in the areas of: board engagement, data systems and management, financing/payment models, delivery system re-design, community benefit/community health, intersectoral collaboration, and policy development. Essential hospitals may benefit from completing this self-assessment as a first step to implementing a population health approach.
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Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
County Health Rankings
County Health Rankings is an online resource center focused on providing reliable data and resources about health and social determinants to inform communities.
The site provides the Health Rankings database for local-level data, as well as numerous resources for implementing population health policies or programs such as the Roadmaps to Health Action Center and What Works for Health compendium. The data provided by County Health Rankings can serve as a valuable benchmark for essential hospitals as they assess community needs.
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Multisector Partnerships
Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP)
MAPP is a community-driven strategic planning tool which can help communities identify and address social determinants of health.
This online resource hosts six modules around key public health infrastructure phases, each with several phase-specific tools. In addition, users can access the MAPP Network to connect with local public health departments and other community partners. While designed primarily for public health professionals, MAPP is not an agency-specific tool and can benefit essential hospitals as they work with local organizations around community health assessment and improvement.
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Hospital Readiness/Community Assessment
Population Health 101
In this educational webinar, Essential Hospitals Institute staff provided an overview of population health and shared how essential hospitals are working to improve the health of their communities.
Attendees learned how social forces affect health and how essential hospitals can partner with local organizations to positively influence these forces. Institute staff shared how America’s Essential Hospitals’ resources and programs can support members in developing, implementing, and growing population health initiatives.
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Strategic Planning
Hospitals Aligned for Healthy Communities
The Hospitals Aligned for Healthy Communities toolkit series, developed by the Democracy Collaborative, offers numerous resources for leveraging the anchor mission for population health.
As essential hospitals often assume the role of anchor institution in their communities, this is a valuable resource for strategic planning. The site features three toolkits specific to workforce, purchasing, and investment. Each toolkit offers case studies, videos, graphics, and step-by-step guides for key strategies.
Learn more in America’s Essential Hospitals’ webinar – Hospitals as Anchor Institutions for Population Health.
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Utility Needs
Program Implementation
Green & Healthy Homes Initiative
The Green & Healthy Homes Initiative is a national organization dedicated to promoting safe and healthy housing.
Their site offers a number of tools that can benefit essential hospitals working in this area. These include: eight standards for healthy homes, home health risk assessment quiz, information and strategies around common household health risks, and educational and technical assistance resources.
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HIT Systems & Analysis
PRAPARE
The Protocol for Responding to and Assessing Patients’ Assets, Risks, and Experiences (PRAPARE) is a tool for health care providers to collect patient data related to social determinants of health.
Essential hospitals can access the PRAPARE assessment tool, as well as the PRAPARE Implementation and Action Toolkit. PRAPARE also includes electronic health record templates for data integration and guides for ICD-10 codes related to social determinants. While PRAPARE was originally developed for community health centers, it has successfully been implemented by hospitals and larger health systems.
Learn more in America’s Essential Hospitals’ webinar – PRAPARE: Using Health IT for Population Health.
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Community Infrastructure
Multisector Partnerships
Build Healthy Places Network
The Build Healthy Places Network supports collaboration between health care and community development sectors to promote wellness in low-income communities.
Essential hospitals can access the BHPN website for a number of resources for population health, including: a Jargon Buster for “learning the language” of each sector, MeasureUp for program evaluation, the Partner Finder directory, live online discussion events, and multiple case studies of successful collaboration in communities across the country. In addition, Build Health Places Network produces a newsletter (The Pulse) and e-magazine (Crosswalk) to share stories and updates from the field.
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Program Implementation
Health Impact in 5 Years (Hi-5)
Health Impact in 5 Years, developed by the CDC, offers resources for 14 community-based interventions to improve health.
These interventions are categorized by “Changing the Context,” as to make healthy options easy or the default choice, and “Addressing Social Determinants.” Essential hospitals and their community partners can reference these interventions when developing population health initiatives. Each of the 14 interventions is evidence-based and has a proven track record to impact health.
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