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IHI Announces Final Selection of Communities for Health-Focused Scale InitiativeThe Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) today announced the 24 communities that will receive funding to accelerate and deepen efforts to improve the health of their populations. Made possible by a $4.8 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by IHI, the communities will engage in an ambitious initiative called SCALE, or Spreading Community Accelerators through Learning and Evaluation. Three partner organizations - Community Solutions, Communities Joined in Action, and the Collaborative Health Network - will join with IHI in assisting the 24 awardees with developing further skills and strategies to improve the health of their communities as well as the mechanisms to spread effective community-driven approaches across the country. "The interviewing team was very impressed with all of the SCALE applicants, and pleased to see such great interest from so many US communities looking to accelerate their health improvement journey. It was very difficult to pare down from our 57 finalists to today's 24 awardees," stated Laura Brennan, MSW, Immediate Past Chair, Communities Joined in Action. Soma Stout, MD, MS, IHI's Executive External Lead for Health Improvement, added, "Now, we look forward to bringing the awardees together to deepen their ability to create effective improvement and to generously share what's currently working in various locales. Communities don't need to start from scratch to reduce homelessness, ease poverty, or fill neighborhoods with healthier food options. Effective interventions already exist that can be more widely adapted - and that process happens naturally when communities start to engage with one another. The awardees all have in common a readiness and eagerness to learn from each other." Over the next two years, SCALE will match the four announced today as "mentor communities" - those with a recent track record of achieving better health - with 20 now designated as "pacesetter communities" or seeking to accelerate their pace of change. Kicking off activity in May 2015, the communities will assess their current assets and skills; begin building or enhancing a set of community-health metrics; and attend a Community Health Improvement Academy that will strengthen everyone's capabilities in leadership, change management, and improvement practices. Each community coalition will work on issues as diverse as increasing food access to reducing substance abuse to helping more people gain healthy literacy. "We are so pleased with the level of interest in this initiative from communities working hard to improve health locally," said Robin E. Mockenhaupt, PhD, Chief of Staff at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "We look forward to seeing the learning, sharing, and impact that results from the efforts of these participating communities." SCALE marks the first community-based program of the recently announced global initiative, 100 Million Healthier Lives, led by IHI and 140 founding partners. The initiative aims to achieve the audacious goal of 100 million people living healthier lives by 2020, and so far has nearly 500 members representing public health, community health, health care, patient advocacy, policy, academia, business, and financing. Improving equity and creating a culture of health is a fundamental tenet of 100 Million Healthier Lives, and a common thread that unites all the SCALE awardees. Communities not selected for the SCALE initiative are being offered the opportunity to engage with 100 Million Healthier Lives and receive some special assistance on mastering improvement methods, peer-to-peer learning, and the best ways to identify "bright spots" or effective practices and strategies. The 100 Million Healthier Lives and SCALE partners pooled their resources to make this option possible. The final SCALE awardees include: Mentors (4):
Cheshire County, NH
Oklahoma City, OK
Summit County, OH
Williamson, WV Pacesetters (20):
Algoma, WI
Atlanta, GA
Bernalillo County, NM
Boston, MA
Cattaraugus County, NY
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Hennepin County, MN
Jackson, MI
Laramie County, WY
Los Angeles, CA (News - Alert)
Maricopa County, AZ
North Colorado
Pueblo, CO
Raleigh, NC
Salt Lake City, UT
San Francisco, CA
San Gabriel Valley, CA
Sitka, AK
Waterville, ME
About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation About the Partners Community Solutions is a registered 501(c)(3) organization that helps communities solve the complex problems facing their most vulnerable, hard hit members. We work from eight locations to assist communities throughout the United States and internationally. http://cmtysolutions.org/ Communities Joined in Action (CJA) is a private, non-profit membership organization of nearly 200 community health collaboratives - each of our members being committed to improving health, improving access, and eliminating disparities in their communities. Our mission is to mobilize and assist these community health collaboratives to assure better health for all people at less cost. http://cjaonline.net Collaborative Health Network is a vibrant network that connects diverse stakeholders and trusted groups who are working to improve community health and healthcare, especially those taking a multi-sector, collaborative approach. Supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and led by the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), the Collaborative Health Network is designed to accelerate the adoption of what is working locally, and to identify the next generation of challenges. http://www.nrhi.org/collaborative-health-network
About The Institute for Healthcare Improvement
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