Aligning Community Benefit Activities of Tax Exempt Hospitals and Public Health Quality

Nonprofit hospitals represent roughly 68% of hospitals beds in the nation. Accompanying a designation as nonprofit comes a requirement for these hospitals to subsidize with their funds community benefit activities for the “express purpose of improving community health”. While hospital community benefit programs have been in existence for decades or more, recent public policies and developments in public health quality give rise to new opportunities for them to significantly improve health in communities across the nation.

This session will illustrate the linkages between the community benefit role of tax exempt hospitals and public health quality concepts. The panel will provide an overview of the historical community benefit role of tax exempt hospitals and describe the relationship between community benefit programs and the aims for quality in the public health system introduced in the HHS Consensus Statement on Quality in the Public Health System. Illustrations will be provided on how community benefit programs can partner with schools of public health and governmental public health agencies to develop community-wide strategies to improve community health. Considerable discussion will also focus on the community building activities of tax exempt hospitals, described by IRS as being provided to protect or improve the community's health or safety, and synergies with the public health quality concepts, Health People 2020, the Guide to Community Preventive Services, and goals overall goals of the Affordable Care Act to improve quality and improve population health.