Collaboration Between Health Care and Public Health: Workshop Summary by Institute of Medicine

Author:Institute of Medicine [Institute of Medicine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Health and Prevention, Healthcare and Quality
Publisher: The National Academies Press
Published: 2016-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

DISCUSSION

During the open discussion, participants expanded on the topics of securing initial and sustainable funding, engaging partners and stakeholders, setting clear goals for the collaborative, and measuring impact.

Funding

One of the lessons partnerships can take from the study by Prybil and colleagues (2014) is how to enhance their chances of success, perhaps using the study findings and recommendations as a checklist, Ramchandani suggested. He asked Prybil and Carkner to elaborate on some of the challenges facing hospital–public health collaborations, and funding was the first topic raised.

Support and sustainability start with having local leadership commit to the partnership with stable support over time, Carkner said. Central to the success of the Quad City Health Initiative has been the anchor leadership of the two nonprofit health systems and their sustained leadership and support over time. They provide the backbone of support that allows for the staff positions and the office to support the work of the board. There has also been support from other community organizations and from individuals, she noted, and the approach to fundraising is still evolving. During this past year, there was, for the first time, 100 percent participation by all of the community board members and/or their organizations in supporting the initiative. The Quad City Health Initiative has also been successful in obtaining grants at the regional and national levels and has just become part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Partnerships to Improve Community Health awardee cohort.

Prybil pointed out that the two health systems partnering with the Quad City Health Initiative are business competitors, but they have agreed to cooperate and support the initiative. The two chief executive officers and their boards believe that the Quad City Health Initiative is good for the whole region. Competitors can be collaborators toward a common goal. Reiterating the findings of the study, Prybil said that partnerships such as the Quad City Health Initiative are helped enormously by having one or more anchor institutions. The anchor institution does not have to be a hospital or health system; it could be a major employer or another party who can make a longer-term commitment of financial resources to underpin the foundation for the initiative. Both health plans and employers are direct beneficiaries of successful partnerships, Prybil said. Nevertheless, he noted, although many of the partnerships studied have health plan staff in volunteer roles or on the board, few health plans were engaged in helping to support the partnerships financially. Similarly, many employers have allowed their staff to contribute as volunteers, but few major employers have made substantial financial investments in the partnerships.

When approaching foundations, major employers, health plans, and other potential financial partners, it helps significantly to have an impact statement that documents what that partnership is achieving in relation to the investments that are made in it, Prybil said. He noted that among the arguably very successful partnerships studied, relatively few had developed a business case around their impact on the health of the community in relation to their costs. As

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.