With shrinking budgets, rising health care costs and the growing burden of chronic disease, working together across sectors is more crucial than ever. Leaders from both public health and health care are finding ways to integrate systems and leverage each other's resources to achieve better health.
Leaders in public health and health care agree that there is great potential to leverage their strengths and resources to create healthier communities. Paul Kuehnert, senior program officer and director of the Public Health team at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, discusses both the promise and some key challenges to integration across health and health care.
We’ve got to stitch together the preventive and population health movement with the medical care delivery movement.”
Nonprofit hospitals are required to provide benefits to the communities they serve to keep a tax-exempt status. Historically, much of hospitals’ community benefit activities have been charity care and other forms of uncompensated care.
However, new community benefit requirements under the Affordable Care Act provide a powerful opportunity to leverage community benefit activities to improve public health. New requirements include community health needs assessments and improvement plans.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded The Hilltop Institute at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to publish a series of issue briefs on best practices, new laws and regulations, and study findings related to community benefit activities and reporting.
Recently, Hilltop looked at hospital community building activities that go beyond clinical care to address the root causes of poor health such as education, housing, and community safety.
Read moreCommunity benefit allows hospitals and diverse partners to identify critical health needs and adopt strategies to improve community health, quality of life, and economic vitality. A new brief summarizes the latest updates in community benefit.
Read the Health Policy SnapshotTwo new Hilltop briefs discuss community benefit reporting requirements and community building. Report authors spoke with NewPublicHealth in a Q&A about what the briefs add to the field.
Read the Q&AResearch is building to inform the path for a healthier future.
Transforming Public Health
Public health leaders on the future of health.
>Paul Jarris and Bobby Pestronk Q&A.
For the Public's Health
Institute of Medicine (IOM) analyzes public health measurement, law, and funding.
>IOM President Harvey Fineberg Q&A.
Primary Care and Public Health
IOM report examines how to work together.
>IOM chair Paul Wallace Q&A.
Share Your Stories
What's your favorite example of collaboration between public health and health care?
Leaders from across the public health and health care sectors are coming together to bring more partners to the table in planning for a healthier future. We got their thoughts by video on why that collaboration is so critical, and how we can make it happen.
The County Health Rankings & Roadmaps illustrate that much of what influences our health happens in our schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods—and show how we can create healthier places to live, learn, work, and play. The County Health Roadmaps project mobilizes local communities, national partners and leaders across all sectors to improve health.
View the County Health Rankings
Aligning Forces for Quality is an effort to lift the overall quality of health care in targeted communities, reduce racial and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform. Some communities are participating in an effort to connect Aligning Forces with public health stakeholders to take multi-stakeholder action that addresses other factors that influence health.
Visit Aligning Forces for Quality