Healthcare Collaborative CEO wants South Side to have more access to healthcare

Kimberly Hobson is the CEO of the South Side Healthy Community Organization. Photo provided by Goldstar Communications.
Kimberly Hobson is the CEO of the South Side Healthy Community Organization. Photo provided by Goldstar Communications.

 Healthcare Collaborative CEO wants South Side to have more access to healthcare

By Tia Carol Jones
Kimberly Hobson has been in the healthcare industry for the past 30 years. She has held leadership positions with Humana, Advocate, Mercy and University of Chicago Hospitals. Now, Hobson is the CEO of the South Side Healthy Community Organization.

Hobson’s most recent position was as CEO of Journey Care, the largest palliative, supportive and hospice care nonprofit in Illinois. While there, she led the effort to rebuild the organization, which yielded operational and financial sustainability.

Hobson wanted to work in an organization where she would be able to connect with people, while developing and managing partnerships. As she began to look for a role, she found a job at Humana Health Plans in provider relations. It allowed her to convene and manage partnerships. During that time, she realized health care was intriguing to her, especially the part where she would have the ability to impact the wellness and health of individuals.

The South Side Healthy Community Organization was born out of a March 2021 legislation signed by Governor JB Pritzker. The law was an equity-driven hospital and healthcare plan, with the goal of creating collaborations that would support bridging the gap in delivering care. South Side Healthy Community Organization is one of nine collaboratives across the state, which received a portion of $94.3 million in June 2021.

Another goal of the collaborative is to transform healthcare in the State of Illinois. During a five-year period, the collaboratives will receive $146 million. The South Side Healthy Community Organization will use the funds to implement its Healthy Community model.

Hobson believes by signing the legislation, Pritzker recognized there are large healthcare disparities in the State of Illinois. “Governor Pritzker and his team believe that healthcare is really a human right, and it’s not a privilege,” Hobson said.

South Side Healthy Community Organization’s Health Community model lays out the way the organization will approach healthcare, with four pillars: To increase and enhance primary care and dramatically improve maternal and infant care and health, address the chronic disease and behavioral needs of the community, address care coordination needs and social determinant needs and preventative care, and to transform transition care and share data with a connected care technology platform.

“It will allow our 13 healthcare partners, where our healthcare patients are seen, to connect and be able to share the healthcare data of our patients in our program, across all of those 13 sites,” Hobson said.

With this, the hope is that it will reverse the longstanding healthcare disparities and reduce cost, as well as improve the economic aspect of health care. The aim is to also decrease infant mortality, reduce chronic disease morbidity and enhance life expectancy, while improving the value of outcomes per dollar, and result in more care delivered locally. It will also create more than 4,000 new jobs during the five-year period.

The goal of the South Side Healthy Community Organization is to go into the communities with healthcare coordinators and provide community-based care for the residents who live on the South side.

Hobson understands what it means to work within an organization with lots of moving parts and be impactful. “I will be able to keep our community engaged, and at the helm of every single thing that we do. I’ll be able to mobilize our partners to continue to work together toward our common goal,” Hobson said.

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