COULD YOU PROVIDE AN OVERVIEW OF ADVENTHEALTH’S COMMUNITY HEALTH INITIATIVES, INCLUDING ITS VISION, MISSION, AND CURRENT CHALLENGES?
A faith-based, not-for-profit health care system, AdventHealth’s mission is to ‘Extend The Healing Ministry of Christ’. Our community health initiatives are a key part of that extension. While AdventHealth provides incredible Whole-Person Care in our clinical settings, we know that a person’s health is determined by much more than traditional health care. We are continuing to grow our focus on the Social Determinants/Drivers of Health (SDOH), meaning those factors outside of a clinical setting that contribute to an individual’s health. Things like housing, food, gainful employment, education, etc. And while our primary business is and will remain delivering world-class clinical care, we invest significant resources in the communities we serve to address SDOH needs. We do this primarily through community partners: local, not-for-profit organizations who know our community and how to best serve them. We arm our partners with resources to carry out these community initiatives. Our biggest challenge in this work is having a clear picture of exactly what effect those initiatives are having, and if we are having an impact on the needs we are trying to address.
WITHIN ADVENTHEALTH, WHAT IS YOUR SPECIFIC ROLE AND PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITY?
I am the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy for the AdventHealth system of 52 hospitals in nine different states. Specifically, I have responsibility for our
IN COMMUNITY HEALTH, WHAT WOULD YOU IDENTIFY AS THE PRIMARY CHALLENGE FACING ADVENTHEALTH, AND WHAT FACTORS CONTRIBUTE TO THIS CHALLENGE?
Our primary challenge is our lack of clarity of what impact our community initiatives and investments are making. As a community-focused health care system, we want to ensure our resources are being utilized to their highest potential to make our communities healthier. Additionally, we are incentivized by governmental and commercial insurance payers to prevent our discharged patients from returning to the hospital. One way we do this is by referring patients in need to our community partners offering social services. Unfortunately, similar to our community investments, we do not have clarity on what happens to these patients after they leave our care, and therefore, do not have a data-driven way of measuring the effectiveness of the social services we are referring them to.
COULD YOU DETAIL THE NATURE OF YOUR COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS WITH ROSEN COLLEGE? WHAT ASPECTS ARE ENCOMPASSED WITHIN THIS PARTNERSHIP?
We are excited about our partnership with Rosen College because it starts to get at the heart of our challenges in community health. AdventHealth invests heavily in our Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) that informs what community initiatives we focus on. Working with Dr. Robertico Croes and Dr. Chaithanya Renduchintala, we will be exploring ways of measuring the impact of these community initiatives and those of our partners. Our plan is to start with one shared community health priority (e.g. diabetes) that both AdventHealth and our community partners are interested in, create a cohort of community members that are struggling with this health issue, then create a learning model of focus groups, surveys, etc. to understand what resources need to be deployed to affect the behavior and intention of these community members. We will then be able to use these learnings to design community initiatives based on these findings. As the model progresses, using the same learning networks, we will be able to measure real outcomes of interventions, allowing us to better direct our funding and resources to the most effective programs and partners.
GIVEN THE INNOVATIVE NATURE OF COMBINING HEALTH CARE AND HOSPITALITY, WHAT SPECIFIC GOALS DO YOU AIM TO ACHIEVE THROUGH THIS COLLABORATION, AND WHAT ARE YOUR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES?
We are excited to be working with Rosen College to achieve the goals and outcomes mentioned above. The hospitality industry, with Rosen College being preeminent in this space, are experts in driving consumer behavior to utilize their assets. If we can leverage this expertise to better understand health behaviors of our community members, what initiatives are having the greatest impact, and driving people to these initiatives, we will be changing the game in community health.
WHY IS THE TIMING OPTIMAL FOR INITIATING THIS COLLABORATION BETWEEN HEALTH CARE AND HOSPITALITY SECTORS?
Both of our industries were hugely impacted by the pandemic. As we continue to recover from this terrible event, there are learnings that are emerging in both of our areas that offer deeper insights into consumer behavior and community health outcomes.
WHAT MOTIVATED ADVENTHEALTH TO SELECT ROSEN COLLEGE AS A PARTNER FOR THIS COLLABORATION? COULD YOU ELABORATE ON THE SPECIFIC STRENGTHS OR RESOURCES THEY BRING TO THE TABLE?
Rosen College is world class in the hospitality and consumer behavior arena. It just makes sense to work with them to utilize our combined expertise to improve the lives of Central Floridians, especially those dealing with poor health. In addition to their stellar reputation in this space, I have a long-standing personal connection with UCF as my alma mater and was honored to be inducted into the Nicholson School of Communication and Media (NSCM) Alumni Hall of Fame in 2015. I currently serve on the Dean’s Advisory Board and the NSCM Advisory Board, and you’ll find me cheering on the Knights at most of our home games. UCF is a key part of my history, and I’m excited to get to work with them on this initiative.
LOOKING AHEAD, HOW DO YOU ENVISION THE EVOLUTION OF THIS COLLABORATION IN TERMS OF RESEARCH, INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES, AND POTENTIAL CAREER PATHWAYS WITHIN BOTH SECTORS?
As we work to perfect the model, this collaboration has a lot of potential to create additional research opportunities, which will necessitate internship and educational opportunities for students within both the hospitality and health care sectors.
