Online Program

330913
Connecting the dots for patients and systems: Exploring a clinic-community linkage to address social determinants of health


Tuesday, November 3, 2015 : 5:15 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Juleigh Nowinski Konchak, MD, Division of Preventive Medicine, Cook County Health and Hospitals System/Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
Kyungran Shim, MD, Department of Internal Medicine, Cook County Health and Hospitals System, Chicago, IL
Sol Anderson, MBA, LIFT-Chicago, Chicago, IL
Jay Bhatt, DO, MPH, MPA, FACP, Chicago Department of Public Health, Chicago, IL
Significant portions of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System’s (CCHHS) patient population live in social circumstances – unemployment, food insecurity, unstable housing – that prevent optimal health. It is estimated, for example, that 19% of County Care patients (medicaid patients served by CCHHS and partners) are housing insecure. CCHHS is not alone in serving patients with great social needs, and today’s health care institutions are often not readily equipped with the expertise or capacity to help patients effectively address social determinants of health.

LIFT is a nonprofit organization with a mission to “help community members achieve economic stability and well-being” by pairing clients with rigorously trained advocates to tackle their personal, social, and financial barriers to health.  LIFT-Chicago has a proven track record and reaches over 2,000 members annually. LIFT has the expertise and capacity to effectively address social inequities.

LIFT and CCHHS have begun exploring a multi-pronged collaboration: 1) to connect CCHHS patients with LIFT support during the clinic visit, 2) to gather at a “policy roundtable” to discuss and address institutional barriers to addressing social determinants of health, and 3) to explore sharing data around community-level factors and individual-level outcomes.  The local health department has committed partnership as well.

This presentation will 1) provide lessons-learned from the exploratory and implementation phases, 2) serve as a “how to” for establishing such partnerships, and 3) include an honest discussion of what went well and what could have gone better.

Learning Areas:

Provision of health care to the public
Public health administration or related administration
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Identify several essential elements for a successful community-clinical partnership to address social determinants of health. Describe reasons for a hospital or healthcare system to consider exploring a community-clinical partnership to address social determinants of health. Design an initial proposal for exploring a community-clinical partnership to address social determinants of health.

Keyword(s): Partnerships, Health Disparities/Inequities

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the conceptualizer at Cook County Health and Hospitals System for the partnership discussed in the abstract. As the former Director of Health Systems Integration at the Chicago Department of Public Health and former Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS, I have had exposure to clinical-community partnerships and related mentorship for several years. I also served as a volunteer for LIFT as an undergraduate student.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.