Outside the hospital walls: An update on Essential Hospitals’ efforts to improve the health of their communities

The Institute, the research and education arm of America’s Essential Hospitals, found that essential hospitals overall are building capacity for community-integrated health care (CIHC), defined as health care providers working with the government, social services, and other sectors in complementary and collaborative ways to improve health. Essential hospitals accomplish this through organizational commitment; workforce development; community engagement; external partnerships; health information technology and data; and finance and investment.One resource, Outside the Hospital Walls: An Update on Essential Hospitals’ Efforts to Improve the Health of Their Communities, expands on the Institute’s foundational research in 2016 about essential hospitals’ work to improve SDOH. The latest phase of research, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, included a survey of more than 40 population health leaders at essential hospitals and interviews with 25 hospital representatives. The Institute found hospitals increasingly see themselves as responsible for caring for all people in a specific geographic area—not just those who come through their doors—and have developed community partnerships that respond to social needs and underlying conditions. Forty-seven percent of survey respondents reported working to change community conditions for housing instability, and 40 percent reported doing so for community infrastructure. The report also highlights a growth in partnerships between essential hospitals and community-based organizations. Data sharing between hospitals and community partners increased by 30 percentage points from 2016 to 2019, the Institute survey revealed.