(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Nationwide Children’s Hospital has launched The Collaboratory for Kids & Community Health, to provide community partners, corporate leaders, policy makers, health care systems and researchers a resource for sharing best practices in pediatric population health strategies. The hospital will fuel the Collaboratory with content based on their extensive experience working with diverse partners to improve communities, implement school-based health, provide high-quality housing, address mental and physical health and more. The site will also collate and share best practices from leaders in the community health space.
“At Nationwide Children’s, our mission is to put the health of the whole child at the center of everything we do. With this in mind, we reach beyond the walls of a traditional hospital, to work in housing, economic development, school health and social justice. By doing so, we can improve the health of the entire population,” said Tim Robinson, CEO at Nationwide Children’s. “For the last 25 years, that has made a crucial impact in the lives of families, from reducing emergency department visits due to uncontrolled asthma to lowering crime rates in the neighborhood around the hospital. But the work is also challenging and our goal is to share our experiences to help other communities learn best practice and generate ideas for their communities through The Collaboratory for Kids & Community Health.”
The Collaboratory will initially focus on four main areas addressing the health of the whole child:
- Improving Neighborhoods – Housing might seem a tangential topic to child health but immediate environments have a huge impact on their well-being. We need ways to help children where they are: in their schools, homes and communities. Nationwide Children’s will share their experience with the Healthy Neighborhoods Healthy Families initiative that has impacted more than 400 homes and it’s school-based health clinics are in schools throughout central Ohio.
- Addressing Inequities – Many children suffer from disadvantages that are the result of inequities. We can better, and more equitably, help those children have the best possible health outcomes. The Collaboratory will feature content and publications that highlight impactful health equity efforts including insights from Nationwide Children’s Center for Child Health Equity and Outcomes Research.
- Mental and Behavioral Health –The facts are concerning; 1 in 5 children have a mental health condition, but there is a national shortage of providers to care for them. Population health strategies from a young age can support these children. The Collaboratory will offer best practices to address this growing need. Nationwide Children’s is well equipped to convene this discussion as home to one of the largest pediatric behavioral health programs in the country with 250,000 behavioral health patient visits annually and unique programs to support community pediatricians and providers.
- Value-Based Care – Providers across the country are seeking strategies to improve health outcomes even with limited financial resources. Value-based care is changing that paradigm within the pediatric landscape. Best practices will include Nationwide Children’s innovative Partners For Kids® program, which in conjunction with its newest partner Dayton Children’s Hospital, now manages the health care of more than 425,000 children across more than half of Ohio’s counties.
“The Collaboratory for Kids & Community Health will stay current with insights from the highly skilled experts, researchers and thought leaders at Nationwide Children’s in partnership with our peers and partners who are advancing this work here and across the country,” said Patty McClimon, Chief Strategy Office at Nationwide Children’s. “This breadth and depth of work in population health, social determinants of health, health equity research and caring for the whole child will not only help children today, but it will create a model for the future that will keep kids well and reduce the need for them to be in the hospital in the first place.”
About Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Named to the Top 10 Honor Roll on U.S. News & World Report’s 2021-22 list of “Best Children’s Hospitals,” Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of America’s largest not-for-profit freestanding pediatric health care systems providing wellness, preventive, diagnostic, treatment and rehabilitative care for infants, children and adolescents, as well as adult patients with congenital disease. Nationwide Children’s has a staff of more than 13,000 providing state-of-the-art pediatric care during more than 1.6 million patient visits annually. As home to the Department of Pediatrics of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Nationwide Children’s physicians train the next generation of pediatricians and pediatric specialists. The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of the Top 10 National Institutes of Health-funded freestanding pediatric research facilities. More information is available at NationwideChildrens.org.