Health Equity Focus on Measuring Hospital Contributions to Community Health
In 2021, Fortune and IBM Watson Health collaborated to rank the top 100 non-federal hospital programs in the United States. This initially included evaluating their clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, patient experience, and financial health. However, no major hospital ranking system included a quantitative measure of community health. Thus, the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity partnered with IBM Watson Health to develop a method to measure the impact of hospitals on community health with a focus on equity, for potential inclusion as a criteria in that ranking.
The team first looked at how hospital systems protect patients during their stay and after they have been discharged. Then, they looked at the relationships between the hospital and community-based partners. Lastly, they examined hospitals as employers, as they are one of the largest in any area.
After many drafts of a proposal and incorporating feedback from the public, they finalized four measures to evaluate a hospital’s influence on community health:
-
Population-level outcomes. This component assesses improvement in county-level metrics of community health and equity.
-
Hospital as healthcare provider. This component assesses whether hospitals meet best practice standards for offering preventive services. Examples include offering tobacco cessation services, violence intervention, and addiction treatment on site.
-
Hospital as community partner. This component assesses whether hospitals meet best practice standards for contributing to community health initiatives. Examples include supporting community health workers, home visiting, and healthy housing programs.
-
Hospital as an “anchor institution”. This component assesses whether hospitals meet best practice standards for employers. Examples include plans to diversify boards and management, paying a living wage, and offering childcare to all employees.
As the Center for Health Equity continues to work with partners to make healthcare institutions more equitable, communities more engaged, and health policies and practices more effective through initiatives such as this, we are one step closer to reaching our goal of eliminating disparities in health and healthcare in Baltimore, the United States, and the world.
You can find more about the proposal process and collaborations in the links below: