The Healthcare Anchor Network, made up of more than 1,000 hospitals that encourage community-centric procurement, recruitment, and investment, said on Tuesday that it has officially become an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Since its establishment in 2017, the Washington, DC-based team has been a project of the non-profit research group The Democracy Collaborative. However, leaders believe that HAN, which now has 70 members of the health system, has assets of more than US$150 billion, and purchases more than US$75 billion each year, can exist independently.

“This allows us to truly ensure that as we grow and take new initiatives, the organization (previously a program) can respond more positively to the needs and priorities of its members,” HAN President David Zucker Man said.

HAN encourages its members Sign the letter of commitment and make a specific commitment Revolve around purchasing and investing in ways that benefit the communities they serve. Twelve members agreed to increase their “influence purchasing” by a total of US$1 billion within five years. Impact purchasing refers to purchasing from companies owned by ethnic minorities and women, as well as local and employee-owned companies. More than a dozen members also signed South Korea’s “land-based” investment commitments, requiring them to allocate at least 1% or US$50 million from long-term reserves or unrestricted investment funds, whichever is lower. To solve the community conditions that create the environment. Ethnic, economic and environmental differences.

Zuckerman said that HAN expects all its members to make commitments on investment, supply procurement and recruitment, but also understands that the health system is in a different position in the process.

“We hope that the healthcare anchor network can include the system that is just getting started in this work, and make a slightly different commitment from what we stated in the leadership commitment,” he said.

2019, South Korea Organized a campaign Fourteen of these members pledged to invest more than US$700 million in community-based initiatives to address the economic and environmental drivers that cause differences in health outcomes.

SSM Health in St. Louis is one of the members of the health system that provided seed funding to help HAN get started. SSM Chief Community Health Officer Dr. Alex Garza said that the non-profit system has identified postal codes with high poverty rates and set targets for hiring people living in these areas. He said that the system is also committed to increasing local procurement and is exploring the best way to invest in local businesses.

Garza said that the goal behind all of this is to further consider health issues so that SSM can help reduce the risk factors that affect people’s health.

“If you just think about its economics, you can’t do that. I mean the monetary return on investment,” he said. “This is the long-term return on your investment. But we know that if we don’t start now, without front-end investment, we will never be able to build a healthy community.”

HAN has raised more than $2 million in seed funding from a handful of health systems, including Kaiser, Intermountain Healthcare, Trinity Health, CommonSpirit Health, and ProMedica. Zuckerman said the organization will still rely on grants, but donations from the health system will help it get started. He said that later this year, HAN will announce a new commitment around local recruitment and workforce development.

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Kaiser Permanente, a large-scale integrated medical system located in Oakland, California, has made further progress in procurement and investment. John Vu, Kaiser’s vice president of community health strategy, said that the system now spends more than $2 billion annually on minority and female-owned businesses, and $220 million has been invested in HAN’s place-based commitments. These investments are distributed among various initiatives, including affordable housing and community revitalization.

“We believe that we must create good conditions for health,” Vu said. “This includes working hard to contribute to good economic opportunities wherever we are.”

Intermountain has been a member of HAN almost since the initiative was launched. Lisa Nichols, assistant vice president of the system for community health, said that to date, the health system of Salt Lake City has invested in more than 600 affordable housing units, including a fund that can provide Teachers, health professionals and police provide affordable housing. .

“We all know that health is more than just healthcare services,” Nichols said. “So, in terms of all the assets we can consider when improving the health and well-being of the community, we have indeed fulfilled our mission in a more comprehensive way.”

HAN requires all its members to submit data on recruitment, procurement and investment every year. Zuckerman said it then posts the information to a members-only platform where the health system can view their progress against benchmarks. In the end, he said that the idea is to track improvements year by year and publicly share the progress.