HEAL

Lessons learned and best practices in identifying community health needs, potential partners, and sustainable partnership structures, as well as recommendations for overcoming obstacles and challenges and assessing partnerships.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food insecurity is defined as a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food with either disrupted eating patterns or reduced food intake. Food insecurity, a determinant of health, affected more than 12.7 percent of U.S. households—that is, 15.8 million households—in 2015.

With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Health Research & Educational Trust has developed a playbook of effective methods, tools and strategies to create new partnerships and sustain successful existing ones.

Hospitals and health systems can implement strategies and programs to improve housing stability, such as neighborhood revitalization, home assessment and repair programs, and care transition programs. This guide recommends a step-by-step pathway for hospitals to consider when developing housing programs. The guide also features five case studies on hospitals and health systems with innovative interventions to reduce housing barriers in their communities.

"Transportation and the Role of Hospitals" is part of a series of guides and resources released by the AHA on how hospitals and health systems can address the social determinants of health (SDOH).

This toolkit provides checklists to assess the organization's diversity (inclusing leadership), workforce diversity, and patient care while providing action steps to move toward being a more diverse organization. The toolkit also provides case studies of various hospitals who took initatives toward becoming more diverse and their outcomes.

Numerous studies have demonstrated a link between the social determinants of health and key health outcomes. AHA has worked to promote widespread use of ICD-10-CM codes that enable provider to collect data on the social determinants of health.

ACHI and the AHA Workforce Center hosted a webinar on how health systems can develop an inclusive, local hiring pipeline through creating more external community connections and internal career paths.

In this webinar, the Center for Community Investment will share the basics about capital investment and how hospitals and health systems can leverage their existing resources for greater impact on health in their communities.

This resource examines the impact of the social determinants of health on patients and communities as they battle the COVID-19 outbreak and shares ideas and case examples to help hospitals address ongoing social needs.

To support hospitals and health systems starting from different points on their journey to strengthen health equity, the AHA’s Institute for Diversity and Health Equity (IFDHE) is preparing four new guidance and resource toolkits to share evidence-based practices to inform organizational next steps. Look for additional IFDHE toolkits to be released throughout 2021.

Reliance on digital tools can exacerbate barriers to care among certain populations and may be less accessible to people with limited English proficiency. As these technologies become ubiquitous, now is the time to examine digital health from an equity lens to ensure that no community is left behind.

Considerations for health care organizations and government entities seeking to build effective partnerships with the individuals and communities they serve to better address their health and social needs.

The tool provides an approachable format to understand progress toward benchmarks characteristic of effective partnerships, to identify areas for further development, and guide strategic conversation between partners.

A concise yet resource-rich learning journey to support a successful, sustainable multi-sector collaborative.

Ten principles that community stakeholders endorse as the guiding compass on your journey to establishing trustworthiness.

Twelve principles to examine the power of the relationships between the health sector and communities.

The Protocol for Responding to and Assessing Patients’ Assets, Risks, and Experiences (PRAPARE) Implementation and Action Toolkit is designed to provide interested users with the resources, best practices, and lessons learned to guide implementation, data collection, and responses to social determinant needs.

Social determinants of health – where we live, work and play – have tremendous affect on one’s health, and they can affect anyone, regardless of age, race, ethnicity.  Help your organization and community better understand how social determinants impact your patients and neighbors as well as what hospitals are doing to address this important aspect of health, and what resources AHA has to help you further tackle related challenges including food insecurity and lack of transportation.

“Pathways to Population Health: An Invitation to Health Care Change Agents” is intended to support health care professionals in identifying opportunities for their organizations to make practical, meaningful, and sustainable advancements in improving the health and well-being of the patients and communities they serve.

This toolkit looks at place-based investment strategies, with an integrated capital approach, which create positive community impacts traditionally overlooked.