A few months ago, an executive coach I’ve known since the early months of the pandemic asked me a question about the community health work I have been doing for the past several years.
“Tell me five things about working in the community that you think I should know.”
I have thought about the question and the answers I spontaneously gave him since, confident that one thing is certain: I don’t really know completely. And I know that I won’t ever completely know. So in that spirit of true humility, when asked I focused on what I was learning, and I gave it a try.
It is worth noting that I spent the first thirty of the forty years of my professional career in the U.S. Military, where everyone had a job, a house, education and access to free health care. It is clear to me now that military members are under greater stress from health related social needs than I realized while I was in uniform. Regardless, in the transition a decade ago from this successful, single-payer, government health system, the biggest wakeup call I experienced was coming face to face with the lack of the same social supports for the patients I now cared for.
For the past decade, I worked in population health as the payer systems evolved to include models of “value-based care.” Over time, it became clear that the greatest value we could provide would be to work with community partners to assure economic growth and stability, housing, transportation and food access as well as health education and seamless health care access for our patients. The individuals of the urban community where my wife and I have lived, worked and worshiped have vastly different life experiences than we do. We continue to learn from them.
Since stepping away from a hospital population health role eighteen months ago, my role has largely been in community health. Thus, my coach’s request. This is what I told him. Continue reading