by Deborah J. Hodges, MA
While access to healthcare is certainly important, studies show it’s not the only factor that influences health outcomes. In fact, approximately 80% of health outcomes can be attributed to things like social, economic, and environmental issues1. That leaves the question of whether healthcare companies have a responsibility to address all these issues adversely affecting those in their community – not just direct treatment of injuries and illnesses.
The way they see it at Kaiser Permanente, it’s not even a question. Once they realized the impact they could have on the health of their community by creating programs and opportunities outside of healthcare, they got to work.
CULTIVATE
Beginning in 2013, Kaiser Permanente launched CULTIVATE, a community health improvement strategy in Southern California. The goal was for the company to rethink the way it does business so they could have a greater impact on the total health of their communities. The objectives of the program included sharing accountability across the organization so they could harness the full power of all their assets (money, relationships, and expertise) to have a positive impact on the health of their entire community.
Kaiser Permanente set out to build new medical facilities in areas of South Los Angeles that were experiencing economic distress, but they didn’t pretend to have all the answers. They realized that, if they were going to serve the community, the first thing they would need to do would be to listen to the community’s own voice and incorporate their concerns into CULTIVATE.
Kaiser Permanente started by conducting an extensive series of ethnographies across communities in the area to help them learn about the challenges, hopes, and expectations of the members of those communities. They made sure to get a cross-section of community members so that everyone’s voice would be represented in the company’s CULTIVATE objectives. And when making those objectives into a reality, Kaiser Permanente invited the community to provide direct input into their community solutions and development efforts. (This was achieved through Total Health Action Tool, THAT.)
Engaging The Community
Beginning in May 2015, Kaiser Permanente collaborated with their medical center leadership teams in West Los Angeles, Downey, and South Bay to develop a strategy for delivering medical care to one of their most vulnerable geographic areas: Service Planning Area 6 (SPA 6), which is located in South Los Angeles. For more than a year, the SPA 6 Taskforce conducted an assessment of community and healthcare needs and made sure to include community members in the process.
Kaiser Permanente bought eight acres of land in Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw on the Marleton Square property (what used to be the Santa Barbara Plaza) for the development of a new medical office building. The property has historical significance and Kaiser Permanente was all too aware of that significance, as well as the opportunities and expectations that came along with it.
While the Plaza had been a thriving part of the community (both socially and economically) before the social upheaval of the 1960s, after that point it became a wasteland of lost opportunity as a result of failed development and broken promises. Kaiser Permanente was seeking to turn that around, but it knew it would need help from the community to understand their hopes and needs.
Overwhelmingly the community members reported the need for jobs and new businesses in the area. Kaiser Permanente got to work with their labor partners, their general contractor for the new building, and community organizations to sponsor job fairs and enroll people in programs and apprenticeships so they’d be qualified for jobs for construction jobs – either Kaiser Permanente’s or other construction jobs in the area.
Giving Them What They Really Need
When securing goods and services for their contract work, Kaiser Permanente decided to promote local economic development at the same time by spending more than $500 million in securing supplies from diverse companies. It also committed to hiring local workers, with local being defined as within five miles of the project site. Kaiser Permanente also partnered with local community organizations to augment services from local, diverse-owned businesses.
The result was that the project of constructing the new medical office building brought jobs to those in the community, including to those who would otherwise have had a hard time securing employment (wounded veterans, those who had spent time in jail, etc.).
Extending Aid Beyond The Local Community
Kaiser Permanente also made sure the new building would offer benefits to the whole community – not just those who worked there. They included a two-mile-long walking path, outdoor exercise equipment, an outdoor café, and a “Community Room” to house community meetings and events. Kaiser Permanente’s staff and physicians also helped renovate the YMCA, located next door to the new medical office building, to further demonstrate their commitment to the community and building relationships.
As happy as Kaiser Permanente is to help out its local community, it also wants to help achieve similar goals throughout the country, which it is accomplishing through its partnership with the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC). ICIC is working to increase economic prosperity in America’s inner cities through private sector investments that will help create jobs, income, and wealth for local residents. Kaiser Permanente is lending a hand by funding ICIC’s Inner City Capital Connections (ICCC) program, which helps small businesses gain access to capital so they can continue to grow. In the fall of 2016 more than 100 small businesses participated in the ICCC program, and in 2017 Kaiser Permanente will be bringing the program back to focus on targeted areas of distress in Los Angeles.
The relationship between good health and livable communities is clear. By leveraging the assets of Kaiser Permanente, the economic, environmental and the social conditions of the community were reimagined with the evolving healthcare landscape and the future role of the healthcare strategist.
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Deborah J. Hodges, MA, Golden Square, can be reached at dhodges@goldensquare.biz or by telephone at 312.675.6080.