Cincinnati Children’s launches community health strategy SP20
Approximately 45 percent of all children and 75 percent of African-American children in Cincinnati live at or below the poverty line–figures that place us among the highest in the country. The infant mortality rate for Hamilton County is 8.8 per 1,000 live births. The county was recently ranked 219th out of 231 large counties in the US. The asthma admission rate for the county is several times higher than the national rate.
Even though Cincinnati Children’s is one of the top children’s hospitals in the country and has received many awards for quality and safety, health outcomes for children living in our surrounding neighborhoods are among the worst in Ohio and in the nation. There are also disparities by neighborhood–children living in Avondale have an inpatient bed-day rate almost four times that of children living in Hyde Park.
The first time community health appeared in the Cincinnati Children’s strategic plan was in 2005. With each successive 5-year strategic plan, community health assumed a more significant role. Four population health goals appeared in 2010: decrease the infant mortality rate, decrease the admission rate for Medicaid children with asthma, reduce the unintentional injury rate, and reduce the rise of obesity.
Drs. Uma Kotagal, Robert Kahn and Srikant Iyer are the leads for the population health effort. Kotagal brings her deep expertise in quality improvement and systems transformation. Kahn has developed a network of community-clinical partnerships to address social determinants of health. Iyer has expertise in population health and value-based payment reform. Faculty and staff from many divisions are playing key roles.
In the spring of 2015, as part of SP20, Cincinnati Children’s launched the most encompassing and boldest community strategy to date: Help Cincinnati’s kids to be the healthiest in the nation through strong community partnerships. Great partnerships are already emerging with United Way, the Cincinnati Health Department, Cincinnati Public Schools, community pediatricians and many others. Cincinnati Children’s understands and expects that this effort will need to be sustained for many years. An initial deep focus will be on two of the highest-risk neighborhoods, Avondale and Price Hill.
Over the past year, Cincinnati Children’s has discovered more about what matters to families in Avondale and East Price Hill. First, there was a visioning session with community partners in October. These guiding principles were generated from that session:
- Equity is foundational to improving children's health
- Children are the center of our work
- Relationships, trust and working together are essential for sustainable solutions
- We all teach and we all learn
- Daily work is action-oriented and results-focused
Over the next several months, an outside company, Design Impact, elicited stories from residents using ethnography. Some residents became peer researchers after training in this method, and they also completed interviews. These vignettes were collated and shared at two other sessions. Everyone involved had a chance to interpret and react to the current reality, dreams and obstacles of community members. The last phase was co-design of interventions that could help remove barriers through collaboration.
The learning network, All Children Thrive, was officially launched on June 14 with an all-day interactive session at the Millennium Hotel downtown. In attendance were 200 community partners, including many families and children. Families helped facilitate the discussion around 20 design concepts. Click here to see them all.
The network goals are:
- Eliminate infant mortality [Cradle Cincinnati]
- Ensure all 5-year-olds have a "healthy mind and body"
- Eliminate disparities across neighborhoods in the health of children
- All children will know how to read by third grade
One of the five network principles, “all teach, all learn,” reinforces the fundamental belief that by sharing success and failures transparently and learning from one another, we can achieve these goals more effectively and quickly than learning alone. Over the coming months, there will be many opportunities for sharing and for developing and refining skills.
There will be more about the network goals and the teams working on them in the next Staff Bulletin. To learn more about the All Children Thrive learning network, contact communityhealth@gmail.com. You can follow the network on Twitter, #ACTCincynow, and on Facebook.
