On March 7, 2018, the Louisville Health Advisory Board (LHAB) held its quarterly meeting at Metro United Way, bringing together over 50 LHAB members representing 33 organizations.
From Humana Foundation’s CEO Walter Woods who talked about the Foundation’s BOLD new 3-year plan embodying its mission to “co-create communities where leadership, culture, and systems work to improve and sustain positive health outcomes” to opportunities for leveraging technology to support the social determinants of health including LouieConnect, and updates from all six committees, the half-day session reminded attendees of the complexity of cross-sector work, and further demonstrated the opportunities for driving toward more healthy days in Louisville and beyond.
Quarterly Meeting Highlights included:
Humana Foundation – Strategic Vision for Louisville
- Kicking off the day, Humana Foundation CEO Walter Woods shared the Foundation’s BOLD new strategy that will launch in April. “Everyone does better when everyone does better,” said Walter, quoting T. Vaughn Walker, Ph.D., Senior Pastor of First Gethsemane Baptist Church while describing how he and his team have been engaged in a listening tour, engaging with over 100 organizations in Louisville and across the country to realize their mission to “co-create communities where leadership, culture, and systems work to improve and sustain positive health outcomes.”
Walter cited the Center for Health Equity’s 2017 Health Equity Report and Louisville Urban League’s State of Black Louisville as important and informative in shaping a focus for addressing health disparity.
As Walter and Remy Noble of the Foundation shared, their grant making will focus on two key areas in Louisville: Post-secondary Success and Sustaining Employment, and Asset Security. The grant cycle will kick off in April and more information can be found on the Humana Foundation’s website.
In addition, the Humana Foundation in partnership with Humana Inc. will launch this year a Community Relations Program in Louisville providing grants to organizations providing critical safety net services as well as those focused on civic and cultural opportunities. In addition to the financial support, the new program also aims support local nonprofits through skills-based volunteerism. Details about the new Community Relations program will be available in the coming months.
Leveraging Technology to Support Social Determinants of Health in our Community
- LouieConnect, a web-based application designed for people who are in crisis is currently being beta-tested by Family Scholar House. “You can’t handle a lot of info when in crisis,” shared Tony Whelan of Family Scholar House about the app's design. “You just want the facts - Who, what, when, where, and why. And, the Live Help button connects you to a 211 operator.”
Tony is looking for opportunities to train organizations and their staff on the tool. If you would like your staff to be trained, please email Tony at LouieConnect@familyscholarhouse.org.
- Jan Sherrell, Senior Manager Basic Needs, Metro United Way and LHAB Community Coordination of Care Committee Member shared how LouieConnect features 212 resources and serves as a nice complement and connection point into Metro United Way’s 2-1-1 tool which has 17,000 resources associated with 900 organizations. 2-1-1 has been in Louisville now for 11 years and has served over 750,000 individuals. Individuals can access the system and its information via a phone call (dial 2-1-1), via text message (text your zip code to 898211) and online (www.metrounitedway.org/211). Calls are answered in the Center for Women & Families Call Center.
- Theresa Reno-Weber, President and CEO, Metro United Way shared with the group the desire of Metro United Way to serve as a unifier, bringing together historical and present conversations and associated stakeholders around how we best utilize technology to assess for social needs and connect individuals to those programs and resources designed to help. She shared how the group has been exploring a specific technology solution from a firm called PCCI (Parkland Center for Community Innovation) that has been operating successfully in Dallas for 3 years. As part of the presentation attendees watched a video that highlights this technology, and Theresa expressed her interest in engaging the full community as she highlighted next steps of confirming feasibility of incorporating health, education, & social services within one system or two that are linked, conducting readiness assessments with community partners and fundraising for a joint investment.
Committee Updates – Progress Toward 2018 Goals
- 1 in 3 persons has prediabetes, yet only 115 persons participated in a Diabetes Prevention Program in Louisville in 2017. The Diabetes Committee seeks to address this gap by understanding barriers and partnering with employers and physicians to screen for, diagnose and route individuals through completion of a Diabetes Prevention Program. There are three pilots currently underway – two with local employers Norton and Papa Johns and one with UofL Physicians.
- The Community Coordination of Care committee is seeking to build awareness for 2-1-1- and the PRAPARE needs assessment as well as pilot screening and community services with Family Health Center patients.
- The Behavioral Health committee recently held its third Zero Suicide Community Action Planning session at the end of February, where the group heard from Centerstone Tennessee’s Director of Suicide Prevention about how they have implemented the Zero Suicide framework within their organization. The group also engaged in an enlightening fireside chat with three media representatives about how suicides are covered in the press. The committee has set a goal for Louisvlile to set a world record for most individuals trained in QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) in a day, targeting National Suicide Prevention Day on September 10.
- The Respiratory Health committee highlighted its advocacy work to increase the cigarette tax as well as support public housing facilities who will be required beginning in August, 2018 to be smoke-free.
- The Culture/Social Impact Committee announced the Year of Arts, HeALIng, and Action! (AHA!) that will launch it’s year-long AHA! Moments event series on April 13. AHA! will focus on how creative approaches and grass-roots to grass-tops network building can impact social, mind/body, environmental and economic health in Louisville, KY.
From providing opportunities for co-creation, customer discovery and launching the GUIDE TO GREATNESS, an art + health neighborhood toolkit being developed by IDEAS xLab in partnership with the Muhammad Ali Center, with support from the Humana Foundation and Fund for the Arts to operationalizing the 6 Core Principles of Ali, the committee is excited to engage everyone from corporate leaders to neighborhood associations in the planning and implementation of AHA! Click here to learn more.
- The Communications Committee outlined the results of the Communications Survey, announcing that LHAB Committees and members can self-select into using Slack as a communications channel – How To Use Slack instructions will be provided to all Committee Co-Chairs for sharing with members. In 2018, the Communications Committee will focus on deploying a comprehensive bi-monthly newsletter “Our Healthy Days” to highlight and share the work of LHAB Committees and member organizations, along with opportunities for LHAB members to participate, support and promote various health and wellbeing initiatives.
Engaging local Physicians in our Work
- Dr. Wayne Tuckson, President Elect, Greater Louisville Medical Society said, "An educated populous makes for an ideal patient." He used the analogy of grace notes making something better to describe the mission of the Greater Louisville Medical Society to improve health literacy in our community. He echoed the sentiments of other speakers and the work of the LHAB, that the social determinants of health are the most important factors affecting the health of patients, stressing that health literacy is one piece of ensuring that patients are able to get the care they need and are able to implement the care that is recommended by health providers. Dr. Tuckson praised the work that the Louisville Metro Department of Health and Wellness is doing around the social determinants of health and especially the recently published Health Equity Report.
Walking the Talk – Volunteer Experience
- Thank you to Metro United Way for hosting our second group volunteer experience – something LHAB members requested as a way to directly contribute to the community during quarterly meetings. The group enjoyed building snack bags with inspirational messaging for participants of the Louisville Urban League’s Street Academy program, engaging 4th and 5th grade males at high schools in the Zones of Hope, where 4 of the 5 participating schools are located in food deserts.