Participants at one of several community workshops sponsored by the Arnhold Institute for Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
There is wide acknowledgement that health care and social services need to be better integrated to achieve community health, especially for the most vulnerable. The best way to do this is not always clear. Health systems and community-based organizations need to better understand how to create these successful, sustainable partnerships.
The Arnhold Institute for Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has taken up this challenge.
The Institute recently convened representatives from community organizations and Mount Sinai Health System, along with philanthropic donors and thought leaders.
During a panel on August 1 at the New York Academy of Medicine, participants discussed the benefits of participating in a year-long initiative led by the Arnhold Institute for Global Health and ideas on how multi-organization collaborations can be improved to better serve community members. The participants included Maxine Golub, Senior Vice President, Planning and Development at the Institute for Family Health; Stephanie Wang, MD, Assistant Professor, Medicine (General Internal Medicine) and a primary care physician at Mount Sinai Saint Luke’s; Shoshanah Brown, Chief Executive Officer at AIRnyc; and Judy Secon, Senior Director of Programs and Operations at New York Common Pantry. The panel was moderated by Principal Investigator Natalie Privett, PhD, Assistant Professor, Global Health, Medicine (General Internal Medicine).
Panelists highlighted that building relationships and having candid conversations with people from other organizations is a critical initial step. Ms. Golub emphasized the importance of making a long-term commitment to working in a community to truly effect change. Participants felt strongly that as the work progresses, it is vital to incorporate members of the community into the process. An important aspect of this will be looking at how care can be better coordinated across health care systems and community-based organizations.
Laurie Zephyrin, MD, MPH, MBA, left, Vice President, Delivery System Reform, the Commonwealth Fund, and Rachel Vreeman, MD, MS, Interim Director of the Arnhold Institute for Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Health System Design and Global Health, and Director of the Global Sites Network. Photo credit: Andrea Archer
In 2018, the Institute received support from the Commonwealth Fund to develop and implement a participatory process to bring together community health stakeholders to identify and brainstorm how to collectively improve a community health issue in Central Harlem. The Institute facilitated several workshops that included leaders from Central Harlem-based community organizations and health systems.
Stakeholders included AIRnyc, New York Common Pantry, City Health Works, the Institute for Family Health, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s, and the Mount Sinai Performing Provider System (MSPPS), a population-health focused, integrated delivery system in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Through design and facilitation techniques, stakeholders identified potential challenges, opportunities, and shared value. Stakeholders began strategizing about potential implementation steps.
Lessons from the initiative workshops were captured and generalized in a guide that is now available for implementers to support community health transformation efforts.
The guide is designed for anyone who wants to improve community health through collaboration across health systems and community-based organizations. It will help people build meaningful partnerships, achieve consensus, and scope out a strategy for community health issues. It is meant to be instructive in thoughtfully convening community-based organizations and health care systems to work towards a collaborative goal while building trust. The guide offers exercises, instructions, and tips to help others create a successful collaboration. It is rooted in the Institute’s experiences developing the collaboration and incorporates lessons learned from leading the collaborative. It was developed with support from the Commonwealth Fund.
Experts agree it is clear that systematic change is needed to improve collaboration. It is complicated and will require dedicated involvement from community organizations, health systems, health information technology experts, policy makers, and payers.
As Arthur Gianelli, President of Mount Sinai Saint Luke’s, noted, “The only way to make change is to change policy at the top and piece-by-piece make improvements at the bottom. We look forward to deepening collaborations across health systems and community organizations.”
