Wellness West Forum Calls for Unity in Fight for Health Equity
Wellness West Forum Calls for Unity in Fight for Health Equity
Healthcare and community leaders urge collaboration and vigilance to protect Chicago’s most vulnerable neighborhoods.
CHICAGO – Inside Garfield Park Conservatory’s Horticulture Hall on Oct. 9, leaders of West Side health and social service community gathered for Wellness West’s fourth annual forum, “Reimagining Care: A Healthcare Transformation Blueprint.” The collective message was clear: Chicago’s West Side continues to bear a disproportionate burden of chronic disease and shortened life expectancy, and only durable, cross-sector collaboration, and a vigilant defense of the social safety net, will address this injustice.
Wellness West, a coalition of more than 50 healthcare and social-service providers working across 10 West Side ZIP codes, convened two panels focused on multidisciplinary care and on the long-term sustainability of Illinois’ Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives.
Panelists included Dr. Omar Lateef, President & CEO, Rush University System for Health and Rush University Medical Center; Brenda Palms, President & CEO, North Lawndale Employment Network; Nancy Cao, Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives Director, Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (IL-HFS); Cristal Gary, Plan President & CEO, Meridian Health Plan of Illinois; and Heidi Ortolaza-Alvear, CEO, IWS Family Health. The discussions were moderated by Dina Bair, WGN’s Emmy-winning health reporter.
Connecting Health to Everyday Life
“The single biggest predictor of how long you live is your zip code. People think it’s gun violence or crime, but it’s not. It’s diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and cancer,”
said Dr. Lateef. “If we can connect those dots, that’s when we start making an impact.”
He added, “You can fix someone’s blood pressure in a hospital, but when they go home, you must connect the dots to what happens when they get there. If they don’t feel safe or secure, they’re not going to pick up their prescription.”
The collaborative model, he said, links hospitals with community health workers (CHWs) who meet people where they are. “If the people in workplaces and in high schools and in colleges all connect the dots and understand that total health is a compilation of all these pieces, then that death gap will start to go away.”
Nancy Cao, representing IL-HFS, said: “We want to enable organizations to come together and build durable infrastructure to serve our Medicaid customers in a more holistic way. This work is really important, especially in the face of funding pressures.”
Work, Wellness, and Dignity
Brenda Palms called the Wellness West partnership a model of integrating health and work. “It is expensive to be poor,” she said. “If everyone thinks that the job is the answer, it’s not if you’re not well… That is part of being job ready. People will lose their jobs when health issues remain untreated.”
Heidi Ortolaza-Alvear credited the Wellness West network with turning shared values into real systems. “We pride ourselves in building trust with our patients,” she said. “The collaborative [Wellness West] has allowed us to move from values to infrastructure.”
A New Threat: Medicaid Cuts
The evening’s panelists warned that proposed federal legislation could slash Medicaid by $1 trillion over the next decade. While eligibility rules wouldn’t officially change, new reporting barriers could strip coverage from thousands of low-income people.
Cristal Gary said: “That is not destiny. Stay engaged, be that trusted voice in your community… There’s so much misinformation out there. This bill has a ten-year time frame, and a lot can happen in ten years.”
Keeping the Faith — and the Focus
Across both panels, one conviction was clear: health equity depends on connection — between hospitals and homes, care and community and data.
Dr. Lateef underscored the importance of access and transparency: “There has to be a push to democratize data. Your healthcare data has to be your healthcare data, and it has to be easy for you to access.”
Cristal Gary emphasized prevention and local engagement: “Community health workers are critical… Once you get people in and engaging with their primary care provider, that’s where the total cost of care starts to go down.”
The event closed on a note of purpose and persistence. “You save one life, it’s equivalent to saving all humanity to me,” Dr. Lateef said.
Moderator Dina Bair offered the final word: “Let this not be the end of our evening, but the beginning of continuing amazing work.”
The entire program video is available at www.youtube.com/@wellnesswestchi. For more information on Wellness West, visit www.wellnesswest.org.
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