Communicating health system transformation: The role for communications in building public awareness and support for the integration of health care and community prevention

Investment in population health has increased due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), providing an opportunity to integrate community prevention with healthcare delivery in a way that improves community health and equity. Visionary health leaders across the country are developing innovative approaches to drive integration and to improve community environments and health outcomes. For these efforts to grow in scale and to spread beyond pioneering innovators, the ideas and successes of this work must be translated and shared with the public, the media, elected officials, funders and other opinion leaders.

Prevention Institute has pursued communications strategies that aim to: encourage healthcare and public health to embrace integration, elevate the work of health-systems innovators and encourage government and philanthropic funders to support prevention-oriented population health initiatives. Our communications strategy has several elements: We have developed a “rapid response network” of public health proponents and equipped them with techniques they can use to shape media conversations on public health. We use our extensive social media networks to disseminate these ideas. We have exposed these ideas to reporters and editors in lay and trade press. And we have written and published articles that discuss and promote these ideas, such as a recent series of interviews in Forbes.com, Profiles in Innovation: Health Leaders Pursue New Strategies to Keep Their Communities Healthy (http://www.preventioninstitute.org/focus-areas/reforming-our-health-system/profiles-in-innovation.html). The session will share insights developed through this process about how to frame issues of health integration and learnings about how to advance effective communications strategies.