In 1994, California law recognized that, in exchange for their tax exempt status, non-profit hospitals assume a social obligation to provide community benefits in the public interest. To that end, 209 non-profit hospitals are now required to submit an annual report to the state documenting what community benefits they provide to their communities. While the statute defines community as “the service areas or patient populations for which the hospital provides health care services”, hospitals have interpreted this definition to include communities that range in geography from the zip code in which the hospital is located to entire counties with millions of residents. As might be expected, the community benefits reported by hospitals bear a direct relationship to how community is defined. In this paper, three community benefit planning efforts are examined: one that is targeted to a small geographic area (San Bernardino Community Hospital); one that is regional in a small county (Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz); and one that is regional in a large county (Sharp Health Care System in San Diego). Each of these efforts are described with regard to the type of benefit activities reported, the degree of local accountability in planning and implementation, and techniques employed to prioritize and evaluate the impact of benefit programs. Tradeoffs are inevitable in each of these approaches – the more targeted the community, the greater the local accountability. However, targeted efforts are less able to support interventions that can address problems that are common among many local communities.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants should be able to: (1) compare and contrast alternative approaches used by hospitals to identify and address community health needs; (2) articulate the relationship between how a hospital defines its community and the type of community benefits it provides; and (3) describe the relative advantages and disadvantages of targeting benefit activities to a small, well-defined community versus participating in a multi-agency, collaborative effort targeted to populations at a regional level
Keywords: Community Benefits, Community Health Planning
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.