Community Health Partnerships:
Strategy Development, Facilitation and Management

I worked in Kent County, Delaware to create a broad-based Partnership for Community Health and conduct a population-based community health status assessment. This Partnership resulted in health status interventions including a comprehensive domestic violence prevention, intervention and aftercare program, and enhanced primary care services through a collaboratively sponsored clinic.

I worked with the Partnership for Community Health of the Lehigh Valley (Pennsylvania) - a collaboration of the seven hospitals of the region, the two county medical societies, and a local health care philanthropy, to conduct a community health status assessment, and develop interventions to improve access to care for low income persons and children. In addition to several issue-specific health status interventions, the seven hospitals have joint-ventured the Partnership Health Plan, an HMO for the 50,000+ Medicaid enrollees in the two county area.

I worked with the Partnership for Community Health of Tioga County (Pennsylvania), site of the American Hospital Association's Fall 1995 "Learning Lab," this project is a single system-sponsored effort engaging the community in the design and implementation of the nation's first fully integrated health and human services system.

My project in Will County, Illinois was to facilitate the Will County Partnership for a Healthier Community. This Partnership produced a county-wide report card on health status indicators, and the Task Groups of this Partnership demonstrated through their activities how health status improvement can be used for purposes of "community marketing" and economic development.

I was engaged by the Partnership for Community Health of Columbia (South Carolina), a collaboration of the four hospitals serving that community to improve child health and access to care for low income persons.

The Partnership for Community Health of Robeson County (North Carolina), in which the only hospital in the county is partnered with the county's department of Health and Social Services, and an organization of federally funded rural primary care centers. In addition, representatives of local clergy, the business community and civic leaders, participate in the partnership. Columbia, South Carolina and Robeson County, North Carolina were sites for the "Carolina's Healthcare Leadership Project" which was funded by the Duke Endowment through a grant to the American College of Healthcare Executives. The American College of Healthcare Executives recently won the American Society of Associations Executives Award of Excellence for these two community projects.

The Partnership for Community Health of Augusta (Georgia) - a partnership engaging county government, public health organizations, and not-for profit, for-profit, governmental, and military hospitals in collaboration with local business, education and religious leaders. This project has resulted in the creation of a network of community-based primary care and human service delivery centers located in African American churches.

The Crawford County Health Partnership (Pennsylvania), an initiative engaging a regional network of hospitals with physicians and community leaders through a PHCO (physician-hospital-community organization) approach to improving community health status.