Becker's Hospital Review

29 THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Boosting access to care for underserved communities: 4 systems share their stories By Kelly Gooch A s hospitals and health systems seek to create more access points to meet demand for healthcare, they are particularly focused on access to care for underserved communities. Becker's reached out to healthcare leaders to learn how they are addressing the issue. ose efforts range from a Center for Health Equity to mobile clinics. Here are their responses: Note: Responses are lightly edited for length and clarity. Mark Clement. President and CEO of TriHealth (Cincinnati): TriHealth is accelerating our efforts to proactively address health disparities, achieve greater health equity, and increase access to care throughout our community. Last year, TriHealth announced the creation of its Center for Health Equity — Greater Cincinnati's first and only institute of its kind in an adult health care system dedicated to eliminating health disparities. e Center for Health Equity will leverage new and existing health system resources and competencies, ranging from analytics and data management to LEAN and performance improvement to care coordination and community organizing/advocacy. e Center for Health Equity will enable TriHealth to prioritize and proactively address social determinants of health and health disparities in order to achieve better health outcomes and greater health equity for ALL patients cared for at TriHealth and across the community. And while we officially launched the Center for Health Equity last year, we've been finding ways to provide necessary health care for the underserved for even longer. Since opening in 2011, TriHealth's Good Samaritan Free Health Center has helped thousands of uninsured, non-Medicaid/Medicare-eligible adults find a medical home where they are able to receive regular primary health care. All of this important work is foundational to our mission to serve the health needs of our entire community and our long-term vision of getting healthcare right by delivering the right care in the right way in the right place at the right cost to produce the right and equitable health outcomes, always. David Jones. Market President, Critical Access Hospitals, CommonSpirit Health Central Region (Missouri Valley, Iowa): CommonSpirit Health is increasing access to care for underserved communities through providing the appropriate tools in order for our CHI critical access and rural hospitals to succeed. Rural America has the oldest, aging and sickest population with the least amount of providers available. CommonSpirit recognizes this growing issue, and has created a critical access/rural market as one tool to combat the issue. is market has a committed leadership team, including myself. e market president's team has a devoted rural team with rural focus, including, but not limited to, a CFO, chief medical officer, chief nursing officer, strategist, mission, human resources, compliance, and a director of operations. is team's approach is to find ways to support CommonSpirit's critical access and rural hospitals. In critical access, we ARE the community. If the hospital fails, so do our communities. One hundred percent of our time is dedicated toward ensuring our communities have every healthcare need met, including our most vulnerable, the oldest, aging and sickest. is critical access team and resources listen to employees and patients located in the communities we serve and, when tools are identified to increase access for underserved communities, CommonSpirit is able to adapt quickly, and provide any tool necessary. For example for our CAHs, the three main reasons for being unable to accept new patients included: Staff training, equipment and environment. Without these items, patients were turned away if they required bariatric care, dialysis or had large wounds. Within months of providing the CAH or rural hospital with the training, equipment and environmental upgrades necessary, census tripled, and, in some cases, even quadrupled. Again, the reason for the census influx is due to the staff now being prepared through education and connection of purpose to take patients they were unable to see before. eir working environment was processed through checklists which widened doors to ensure we had the correct equipment and training to accept bariatric patients, which was not previously an option. To ensure staff was ready to manage larger wounds, CommonSpirit sent select nurses back to school for continuing education so they would be prepared to take care of these patients moving forward. is approach has not only increased access for the underserved communities, but our communities as a whole, which has helped lead us to meet and exceed in areas of employee engagement, patient experience, quality management, and financial stability. is dedicated market has also given us the opportunity to share staff throughout our CAH and rural hospitals, and provides increased access for community members that might not require a full-time specialist. Another successful approach is for our 21 CAHs and rural hospitals to work with other healthcare systems to receive patients. is helps not only increase services for both healthcare organizations, but frees up beds throughout larger facilities. e result of this approach includes less time for patients in underserved communities not having to wait in the emergency room due to a lack of bed availability in more metropolitan hospitals who could potentially offer services CAHs and rural hospitals were previously unable to provide. CommonSpirit's dedicated critical access/ rural market is able to wholly support our mission and result in increased access to care for our underserved communities. Constance O'Malley. Regional COO at University of Michigan Health (Lansing): We are opening a new pain and rehab center in our Ionia, Mich., area. e pain center opened May 7, and the rehab center will be opening June 1. We're trying to increase access in some of our critical access areas like Ionia. In addition to that, we just opened a new school-based clinic in Grand Ledge on April 22. at was to increase access for young people from ages 5-21. at's for well visits, potentially behavioral health visits, immunizations, also non-well visits. at clinic is open to the community as well as being attached to the school so if there are

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