AT THREE YEAR MARK, WELLNESS WEST PUBLISHES PAPERS ABOUT CLOSING HEALTH EQUITY GAP ON CHICAGO’S WEST SIDE


AT THREE YEAR MARK, WELLNESS WEST PUBLISHES PAPERS ABOUT CLOSING HEALTH EQUITY GAP ON CHICAGO’S WEST SIDE

(CHICAGO – Nov. 1, 2024) Wellness West announced today the publishing of two key papers about its nearly three-year journey to tackle health disparity gaps that exist on Chicago’s West Side. Wellness West is the coming together of 48 West Side institutions to build an unprecedented continuity of care among hospitals, out-patient care, the social service network and community residents.

The 12-page paper, Bridging the Gap: How Our Community-Led Health Collaborative is Implementing Health Care Transformation and Achieving Health Equity on Chicago’s West Side, takes a comprehensive review of the Wellness West mission, the current state of health on the West Side, key results and success factors. The paper includes a detailed discussion on the interconnectedness between health outcomes and social risk factors. It also includes case examples of impact. An 8-page companion paper, Imperatives to Creating an Optimized Health Equity Collaborative, examines the origins of Wellness West and summarizes the nine imperatives to building and maintaining such a collaborative from an operations point of view.

“We believe the Wellness West model of community-based care coordination can be replicated across the country,” said Jose R. Sanchez, Chair of the Wellness West Board. “We consider it our responsibility to share our experience and lessons learned with policy makers, the public and anyone contemplating a similar model in their own communities. We still have a long way to go, but we thought it important to take stock of where we are and what we’ve learned so others can benefit from our experience.”

 Wellness West is funded by the Illinois Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives (HTC) initiative of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services that is investing in closing gaps in care and increasing health equity for Illinois. More information about Wellness West is available at www.wellnesswest.org

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