Transforming our Health System through Community-Centered Health Homes

Our Thinking and Writing

Community-Centered Health Homes: Bridging the gap between health services and community prevention
In this brief, we first described our vision for this model. It describes the practices healthcare organizations can adopt, in cooperation with local partners, to investigate and address the conditions that influence a community's health. It shows how community clinics around the country are helping catalyze efforts to reduce disease by non-clinical strategies such as improving slum housing and by increasing the access of low-income residents to fresh, healthy food.

Introducing Community-Centered Health Homes
In this five-minute video, produced by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, PI's Larry Cohen describes the basic vision of the model, introducing it to health leaders in that state as they develop a demonstration projectembarked on a multi-faceted initiative to put the model into practice.

Sustainable Investments in Health: Prevention and Wellness Funds
In this brief, we describe a potential sustainable solution for financing community prevention interventions as part of health improvement and cost-containment strategies. It explores a crucial set of questions about prevention and wellness funds, including how funds can generate revenue; how they should be managed and where they should invest; how to assess effectiveness; and how to emphasize health equity.

Closing the Loop: Why We Need to Invest-and Reinvest-in Prevention
The Institute of Medicine published this 2014 discussion paper by PI's Larry Cohen and Dr. Anthony Iton, senior vice president of The California Endowment. It proposes the creation of ongoing funding structures to invest in initiatives that improve community conditions, prevent chronic disease and ultimately reduce healthcare expenditures.

How Can We Pay for a Healthy Population? Innovative New Ways to Redirect Funds to Community Prevention explores sustainable sources of funding that can be used to support a renewed focus on prevention and population health.

Assessing and Promoting Adoption of the Community-Centered Health Home Model explores the upstream focus of community clinics in California and how their practices mesh with the principles of the CCHH model. It offers useful lessons that can help guide health-transformation and prevention efforts and was supported the Blue Shield of California Foundation.

Profiles in Innovation: Health Leaders Pursue New Strategies to Keep Their Communities Healthy, a four-part series by PI's Rob Waters on the work of health leaders who are moving healthcare institutions upstream, was published in Forbes.com.

Collaborating on Healthier Communities, a commentary by PI's Larry Cohen, published in Modern Healthcare magazine, looks at the effort to transform the healthcare system and refocus it on outcomes and the health of the population.

Putting Ideas Into Practice

We are thrilled to be working with several important philanthropic organizations to start putting the CCHH model into practice.

• In North Carolina, we are partnering with BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina Foundation (BCBSNCF) to develop a demonstration project that will test implementation of the CCHH model. The Foundation will provide short-term grants to up to 10 teams of healthcare providers and community partners to "test and grow" their Community-Centered Health Homes initiative.
• In Louisiana, we are working with the Louisiana Public Health Institute on a demonstration project that is providing two-year, $250,000 grants to four community health centers (two in Louisiana and one each in Alabama and Florida) to enhance their ability to "take the next step... and serve as trusted, effective partners in community prevention." More information about the project and funding opportunity is available here.
• The BUILD Health Challenge, a joint $8.5 million funding initiative between the Advisory Board Company, the de Beaumont Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Colorado Health Foundation, is designed to inspire communities to take innovative and collaborative approaches to improving population health by directly addressing the social determinants of health. These awards will recognize and support integrative health interventions built on partnerships forged between health systems, community-based organizations and leaders, and local health departments.

Our Funders

Support from The California Endowment, The Kresge Foundation, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, Blue Shield of California Foundation and Louisiana Public Health Institute has been instrumental in helping us develop this model and we are grateful for it.