“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) February 17, 2017 – The Alliance Healthcare Foundation (AHF) announced a new initiative— InvestUp —to focus on foundational and sustainable systems change designed to further positively impact the health and wellness of our community in San Diego and Imperial Counties.

“The Board of Trustees has long considered it our duty to seriously consider releasing our assets beyond our 5% targeted distribution each year for opportunities that hold meaningful potential to solve the health and wellness issues in our community. The distinction in this announcement is we are no longer waiting for something to come to us. Our InvestUp initiative signals a shift in our practice to now actively look for opportunities,” said Elizabeth
Dreicer, Board Chair for AHF. “With this announcement, we also hope to inspire more to come to us with their ideas. The hurdle is appropriately high as we are looking for projects designed to drive meaningful and sustained impact in our community.”

“InvestUp programs will be greater than our $1M Innovation Initiative and may be funded by grants, loans and investments. They are expected to be long term relationships solving complex issues,” said Nancy Sasaki, Executive Director of AHF. She further explained that this approach is “important in order to establish programs that have sustainably greater impact on health and wellness over years and decades. These programs will have a long term plan to ultimately impact thousands, even though they may start as smaller pilot projects.”

Through InvestUp, AHF will direct funds towards health and well-being with an emphasis on behavioral health as we recognize that Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely absence of disease or infirmity. Wellness is an active process of becoming aware of making choices toward a more successful existence. AHF anticipates utilizing a variety of mechanisms to support positive, long lasting and sustainable change for our community.

AHF further announced that its first InvestUp recipient is the 2011 Innovation Initiative awardee, 2-1-1 San Diego’s Community Information Exchange (CIE) program. Rob McCray, Immediate Past Chairman of AHF and Chairman of the InvestUp Committee said, “The promise of CIE has evolved from a database for better care coordination to a system that links individuals and organizations together for not only better care coordination, but also more efficient exchange of information, less duplication of services and effort, as well as faster identification of need and connection to appropriate services.”

Starting as a coordinating platform between the social services including St. Vincent de Paul, PATH, Emergency Services and law enforcement and healthcare communities Scripps Mercy Hospital, UCSD Hospital, and San Diego County Health & Human Services, AHF has just “invested up” to combine the CIE service program with 2-1-1 San Diego service overall as a person-centered system to better support the health and social needs of all 2-1-1 participants—both individuals and the 6000+ service providers. 2-1-1 San Diego receives over 500,000 requests for assistance each year and the addition of the CIE allows for the connection between all the programs they provide, both internally and externally, with the full range of providers in the community. The CIE program is now poised to expand from the homeless population and seniors aging in the community to all people in needed of a social service in San Diego County.

John Ohanian, CEO, 2-1-1 San Diego reflected, “It is an exciting time for 2-1-1 San Diego. Alliance Healthcare Foundation’s InvestUp initiative furthers the work we’re doing to build a 360º Community Coordination platform that uses a person-centric approach to care. Leveraging the success of CIE, we are transforming the work we do. AHF is a true partner working alongside 2-1-1 to build a region-wide ecosystem, utilizing bi-directional referrals, establishing a community care plan for all sectors and allowing for efficient and effective client care and measurement of a client’s success over time. Recognizing the importance of social determinants of health, AHF bridges social and health services and their providers. AHF’s InvestUp initiative is a great opportunity for nonprofit organizations to make substantive and long-lasting innovations in our community.”

“There is a growing consensus that the current health care delivery system, which focuses on treating diseases and conditions, only goes so far in containing cost and ensuring quality,” said Nick Macchione, Director, San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency. “But with policy focus and payment reform moving from volume to value, there is recognition that there are numerous factors that influence and impact health. Our regional vision, Live Well San Diego, focuses on developing a person-centered culture of health and wellness. We are fortunate to have partners like 2-1-1 San Diego and the Community Information Exchange (CIE), which will provide critical data about those community based factors impacting health. Bringing together our regional health information exchange – San Diego Health Connect – and the County Health and Human Services Agency’s data-sharing platform – ConnectWellSD – we are quickly approaching the day where we will have the 360º person-centered view that allows integration of valuable data that is currently fragmented and often out of reach.”

“The 2-1-1/CIE project is fundamental to delivering a complete picture of a person receiving care. Presenting social services and medical information in a single presentation will give our providers much needed insights to a person that will not only impact diagnosis but treatment. San Diego Health Connect is excited about the opportunity to work with 2-1-1/CIE going forward in delivering whole person coordinated care,” said Dan Chavez, CEO, San Diego Health Connect.

“Person-centered care helps reduce health care spending. It is even more powerful to represent all the needs of the poor, children, the uninsured, homeless and other challenged populations with respect to access to services,” said Ms. Sasaki.

Through the InvestUp initiative, AHF will provide funding for the types of systemic initiatives designed to truly address the needs, gaps and advocacy necessary to change the system so people are receiving the highest quality of service with the greatest impact for positive change while reducing costs. More details, including how to connect with AHF to learn more, can be found on the AHF website at https://alliancehf.org.

ABOUT ALLIANCE HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION:

Alliance Healthcare Foundation is a San Diego-based organization which works with nonprofit, government and community agencies to advance health and wellness throughout San Diego and Imperial Counties. AHF works to serve the most vulnerable – the poor, uninsured, homeless and children by providing grants, advocacy, and education to support its region.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: https://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/02/prweb14076686.htm