Community Health/Outreach Worker Tool

The community health improvement (CHI) process brings together health care, public health, and other stakeholders to identify and address the health needs of communities—because working together has a greater impact on health and economic vitality than working alone.

Below are examples—organized by initiative type—of how hospitals have successfully engaged in collaborative, innovative work to improve the health of their patients and others in their communities. Hospitals are not doing this work alone; they are addressing critical health issues with public health, social services, and other partners in their communities. Several hospitals initiated these activities as a result of findings from their community health needs assessments (CHNAs). Many undertook community-based initiatives to address the needs of patients who are often clustered geographically and who interact frequently with the healthcare system (super utilizers).

Several of these examples are cutting edge initiatives that are demonstrating promising early results. A few can be found in the CHI Navigator Database of Interventions . Most of these examples highlight the impact of this kind of work on the financial bottom line, which is important as the health care system moves to value-based payments.

When people get sick or develop a disability, they often ask their health care providers, “How did this happen?” The answer could be clear and obvious but many times it is more complicated.  A Story of Health multimedia eBook explores this question and delves into how our environments interact with our genes to influence health across the lifespan. We tell A Story of Health through the lives of fictional characters and their families - Brett, a young boy with asthma; Amelia, a teenager with developmental disabilities; and toddler Stephen, recently diagnosed with leukemia. Each fictional case features the latest scientific research about disease origin and helpful facts about disease prevention. “Although our characters are fictional, the risk factors they face are real,” says Mark Miller MD, MPH, co-author and director of the University of California, San Francisco, Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit.  “Our eBook brings stories of health to life through an interactive format that we believe will engage a wide range of audiences.”