Public-private partnerships offer a means for diverse organizations to come together, pooling resources and to improve the community.
Such partnerships are not new to Springfield. Among recent examples is Springfield's crime lab, which was brought to fruition with the help of funding from 13 area banks.
It is clear that many of today's health problems, such as a need for better access to affordable, high-quality and consistent care, are best addressed from a broader, community-based perspective.
The need to foster such arrangements is supported by public and private health care organizations as the demand continues to rise for individual entities to provide sufficient services on their own, despite the lack of resources. This need is especially evident given the present economy.
Some examples of public-private partnerships for health care are The Kitchen Clinic, with support provided by both the CoxHealth and St. John's health systems and volunteer physicians through the Greene County Medical Society; the Tooth Truck, which provides dental care to those without insurance; and the establishment and growth of the Jordan Valley Community Health Center.
In the past 50 years, health care has become a very specialized industry, categorizing itself into many subsystems. The increase in knowledge and services rendered has had many positive, life-changing outcomes. It has, however, also further deteriorated the collaborative efforts of health care players to rely on each other.
Some of the largest U.S. communities and health systems are setting aside competition to agree on one mutual problem: Something must be done about a growing population without health insurance coverage and access to affordable care.
Public-private partnerships have been a catalyst for better access to health care for residents, facilitating collaborative efforts to address gaps in health care services.
Each partnership created is unique with its own particular set of goals. A common thread, however, surrounds these four shared principles:
• The focus is on the health status of the community, not just on patients who receive care or enrollees of a health plan.
• A seamless continuum of care is established with mechanisms that facilitate and coordinate service at the right time in the most appropriate setting.
• Efforts are managed within limited resources that are shared across the delivery spectrum for provision of care.
• Community accountability is established through the active involvement of community stakeholders.
To interface on a level that provides access to resources, technical expertise and outreach, these partnerships reflect the community's needs and comprise local organizations such as health care providers, businesses, government agencies, school systems, faith-based institutions, community members and other types of advocates.
The true genius of these partnerships is their ability to solve complex problems such as how to encourage more primary or preventive health care education; how to provide access to these types of providers in low-income neighborhoods; how to coordinate emergency care for the uninsured without compromising services; how to get medications to people who cannot afford them; and how to make well-child exams available.
Two of the more specific problems that many public-private partnerships have tackled involve ways to implement data systems that allow health care providers to share information about patients who seek health care services in an uncoordinated fashion, and how to manage chronic health problems and behavioral health care for patients who lack coverage.
Public-private efforts are able to help residents stay healthier, improve overall community health and reduce health care costs for both consumers and providers. Serving as neutral convening bodies leading multidisciplinary efforts, these partnerships jointly determine how to best align and allocate resources to more efficiently serve communities, providing information and acting as a referral source for families and community-based human service agencies working to address ancillary needs.
Health care providers including Springfield-Greene County Health Department, CoxHealth, St. John's, The Kitchen, Jordan Valley Community Health Center, Ozarks Regional Health Center and GCMS, are discussing how they can work together to streamline services through the implementation of a "patient-centered medical home."
Ultimately, the shared vision is to create a coordinated, patient-centered, preventive-based system of health care throughout the region that eliminates health disparities and makes high-quality services available at the lowest possible costs. This is a bold, unprecedented effort that requires a level of collaboration between all the major health care providers, both public and private.
Kevin Gipson is director of health with the Springfield-Greene County Health Department. He may be reached at kgipson@springfieldmo.gov. Carmen Parker Bradshaw, the department's health policy coordinator, contributed to this column.
