Giving Compass' Take:

• Grantmakers in Health explore partnerships of community-health teams on a national scale and the efficacy of these efforts. 

• How can donors help these partnerships thrive?

• Read about how partnerships and collaborations can improve healthcare access. 

After a national call for proposals that generated applications from 51 schools, a national advisory council selected 16 to participate in the two-year program. Schools received $50,000 grants that required a one-to-one match and included over 85 hours of technical assistance and site visits to the communities. The types of diverse settings serving vulnerable, high-risk populations include: low-income housing facilities, a residential addiction treatment center, a skilled nursing facility, a Federally Qualified Health Center, a primary care teaching clinic, a public school, and rural and urban primary care clinics.

At the end of the two-year initial implementation, an external evaluator documented a number of health, patient, learning, and organizational outcomes in individual sites. Most notably, improvements were reported in health (decreased emergency department visits, increased access to care, decreased hospitalizations, and decreased diabetic markers); organizational measures (increase in staff satisfaction, expansion of services such as two new primary care teaching clinics); expansion of the number of professions involved; and the progression of how well faculty, staff, students, and community members work together in teams.

Pandemic-Ready in Arizona. As a result of the Arizona Accelerating Initiative, Crossroads Inc.—a residential substance use treatment center serving the Medicaid population in Phoenix—built a clinic to deliver onsite clinical care for the first time, while also creating an interprofessional teaching site.

What is Next? The inspiring experiences of the Accelerating Initiative teams offer many insights to build upon. In 2020, 11 of the 16 Accelerating Initiative partnerships are not only sustained but are vibrant, making an impact in their zip codes.

A critical success factor in the Accelerating Initiative is collaboration with the National Center and across sites—as well as support and facilitation through guided tools and coaching. Additional lessons learned include: engaging the patients and communities from the beginning; building trust through strong academic community teams; team leaders who share decisionmaking; and early planning for sustainability.

Read the full article about educating health care teams by Barbara F. Brandt, Susan Harrell, Susan Hassmiller, and Peter Goodwin at Grantmakers In Health.