Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente and the American Hospital Association are among a number of groups uniting to form a new coalition that aims to strengthen the partnership between health systems and public health. [Becker's Hospital Review]
<Dr. Bechara Choucair,, MD, KP, is the keynote speaker at the 9th State of Health of Chicago on Dec. 14, 2023 at the Grand Lux Cafe, Chicago. More details here>
The Common Health Coalition: Together for Public Health, which also involves the Alliance of Community Health Plans, the American Medical Association and AHIP, is focused on translating the "hard-won lessons" of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic to improve public health outcomes.
The coalition will initially focus on four areas:
- Greater coordination between public health and healthcare systems
- Building shared, well-maintained emergency preparedness plans
- Establishing national standards for healthcare data that help identify health disparities
- Modernizing infectious disease detection
"The lessons we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic remain as urgent as ever and health care and public health institutions are ready to act on them," said Bechara Choucair, MD, coalition steering committee member and senior vice president and chief health officer at Kaiser Permanente. "Supporting a strong public health system is a foundational part of Kaiser Permanente's commitment to promoting health equity and improving the health of our members, and the Common Health Coalition is a powerful vehicle for advancing that mission."
More details on the coalition's work can be found here.
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