Healthy communities

By Tim Sayler

The health care industry has made substantial advances in medicine over the past several decades, but we also face some significant challenges today. The cost of health care in the United States has increased dramatically, yet our levels of health fall far behind other developed countries.

Historically in health care, we’ve focused on that one-to-one relationship: treating our patients after they have become ill. Now, we’re expanding our focus, discovering new ways to keep our communities healthy in the hopes of preventing trips to the hospital or unexpected clinic visits.

If we are going to be healthy and pay less for health care, we need to come together as a community, working in partnership toward a common vision. As a community, we must find ways to improve our lifestyle choices, along with our ability to care for each other and ourselves. This will make us healthier and will help reduce health care spending and reliance on the health care system.

One of the three aspirational aims of Essentia Health is to achieve health and vitality with our communities. Our mission is to make a healthy difference in people’s lives, regardless of whether or not they are in our hospitals and clinics. This requires us to think beyond our walls. We’re finding new ways to improve our communities through positive partnerships, with innovative thinking and by listening and responding to the needs of those we serve.

Statistics show that only 10 percent of a community’s health status is determined by the health care services offered in that community. That means 90 percent of a community’s health is influenced by other factors, such as environmental, behavioral and socio-economic factors, and genetics. The key to a healthier community lies in addressing those health challenges outside the health care system.

In order to make a significant impact, community leaders must embrace the concept of “health as policy.” That means building the idea of health into almost everything that a community does, from walking trails to green spaces to smart food choices. All these things are important if we are going to have a healthy and sustainable society.

At Essentia, we are actively looking for new ways to become involved and have a positive impact on the health of our communities. A few of the many examples include “adopting” a local school to mentor the kids, provide staff to talk about careers and offer outreach services for parents and children to get active. We partner with our local food co-op to provide funding to low-income families for healthy food, and with local nonprofits to teach nutrition classes to kids and intensive bike riding classes to disabled children. We sit on many community boards.

We are focusing on what we can do outside of our walls to make a difference in our communities.

We encourage our employees to become active in the community by donating $100 to the charity of their choice when they have completed 20 volunteer hours at local nonprofits. Over the past year, our employees in western Minnesota and eastern North Dakota alone have volunteered more than 8,100 hours and extended our mission to make a healthy difference in people’s lives into the community.

Business and economic leaders may not always think about the cost of health care until it comes time for them to determine what they are going to spend on employees’ health insurance. That is at the end of the line, rather than at the beginning. If we think about our employees’ and our community’s health at the beginning, and we make wise choices and wise investments, the end takes care of itself.

As business and community leaders, we can leverage our expertise and our influence to support healthy choices for our employees and community.

When leaders come together with a common purpose, we can make a lasting change. That’s where health as policy comes in – providing all members of a community access to healthy food, recreational space and affordable health care when and where they need it.

It means that a community’s health concerns are addressed not just in the clinic or hospital, but also in partnership with schools, churches and workplaces.

We work hard at Essentia to make care more convenient, accessible and affordable. Every day, we look for ways to be more proactive, using care teams to manage patients’ chronic health conditions, and, when possible, to prevent those conditions in the first place.

We are also leading and joining grassroots wellness initiatives to make a healthy difference in our communities. I invite all business and community leaders to do the same. By helping our friends and neighbors achieve better health, we will see them less often in our exam rooms and hospital beds, and more out in the communities we love. PB

Tim Sayler CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER ESSENTIA HEATH-WEST ESSENTIAHEALTH.ORG