June 2023 Mission Moment: Access to Care
The Coleman Foundation June 2023 Mission Moment on Access to Care
The Coleman Foundation’s current strategic plan includes a learning agenda for each of our three programmatic areas: Entrepreneurship, Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities, and Health & Rehabilitation. The overarching goal of the Health & Rehabilitation program is increasing equitable health outcomes so that there is a higher quality of life among the underserved and under-resourced. In pursuit of this goal, Coleman established a learning agenda that focuses on access to care, workforce development, and chronic disease prevention and management through a lens of cultural competence and patient-centered care.
Coleman’s learning agendas are realized by engaging our Board of Directors in grantee partner convenings, leader briefings, site visits, and Mission Moments. Mission Moments are panel discussions with grantee partners held during Coleman board meetings to spotlight one of our programmatic focus areas. The June Mission Moment highlighted access to care, as it is a core part of the Health & Rehabilitation program. Through this Mission Moment, Coleman aimed to learn more about the barriers to healthcare, particularly on the South and West Sides of Chicago, and how its grantee partners remove these barriers for underserved and under-resourced communities. According to a 2019 analysis done by the New York University School of Medicine, the life expectancy gap between Downtown Chicago and neighborhoods on the South and West Sides can be up to 30 years.
Mission Moment panels are typically led by experts from three organizations. In June’s Mission Moment, the three panelists were Kimberly Hobson, Chief Executive Officer of the South Side Healthy Community Organization; Nicole Milano, Project Director of Wellness West, and Dr. Mary Pasquinelli, a Nurse Practitioner within the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health).
Both South Side Healthy Community Organization (SSHCO) and Wellness West are organizations formed by the State of Illinois Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives funding. SSHCO seeks to reduce health inequities and improve health outcomes for patients residing on the South Side of Chicago through a network of federally qualified health centers, safety net hospitals, and health systems. Similarly, Wellness West addresses health inequities on the West Side of Chicago through area hospitals, residents, health centers, and behavioral health providers. Ultimately, they seek to transform health care on Chicago’s West Side through a community-driven, collaborative, and evidence-based approach to make lasting change. Additionally, Coleman funded UI Health’s BRIDGE Lung Cancer Screening Pilot. This pilot aims to increase access to screening and improve lung cancer outcomes in the South and West Sides of Chicago.
During the Mission Moment, the panelists explained what access to care means in the context of their organization’s mission, the significant barriers to healthcare among their communities, and what strategies they implement to address these barriers. For example, Wellness West places care navigators in emergency departments on the West Side to screen patients for social determinants of health needs, such as housing, food, and transportation. Another example includes Dr. Pasquinelli and her team at UI Health providing tailored outreach and education approaches in Spanish and Chinese around lung cancer education, as well as connecting high-risk individuals directly to a screening program. Additionally, the panelists explained how their organizations build trust with the people they serve, which is a key element of creating access to care and ultimately establishing a framework for health equity. For instance, SSHCO builds trust with their communities by hiring vendors, employees, and healthcare providers from surrounding communities to reflect the lived experiences of the patients they serve.
As an integral part of our learning agenda, Mission Moments are an example of the Coleman Foundation’s commitment to centering and elevating the important work of our grantee partners.
