In January 2017, the board of the Hospital Association of
Southern California (HASC) approved a new community health
improvement initiative focused on reducing health disparities in
the HASC region of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San
Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The initiative,
Communities Lifting Communities (CLC), is working to advance
significant systems change through a collective impact model
involving hospitals and health systems, public health
departments, community clinics, Medi-Cal Managed Care Plans, and
community stakeholders.
In February 2018, HASC member hospitals and HASC’s for-profit
subsidiary, AllHealth, committed $1 million to CLC over two
years. This initial investment has allowed the CLC to hire an
Executive Director and Project Manager and contract with subject
matter experts to develop CLC priority areas and community health
improvement initiatives.
Generous support from Blue Shield of California Foundation and
The California Endowment, along with a sponsorship from Health
Net, will fund planning and implementation of several CLC
initiatives in 2019-2020. CLC initiatives include community
health improvement projects to:
Improve birth outcomes
Reduce the incidence of diabetes and address food insecurity
Support capacity building in hospitals and public health
departments to advance systems change and health equity in
Southern California
CLC was developed with input from three founding partners: HASC,
HC2 Strategies and the Public Health Alliance of Southern
California (Alliance).