Community-based organizations’ perspectives on improving health and social service integration

Abstract

Background Collaborations between health systems and community-based organizations (CBOs) are increasingly common mechanisms to address the unmet health-related social needs of high-risk populations. However, there is limited evidence on how to develop, manage, and sustain these partnerships, and implementation rarely incorporates perspectives of community social service organizations. To address these gaps, we elicited CBOs’ perspectives on service delivery for clients, the impact of the Whole Person Care-Los Angeles (WPC-LA) initiative to integrate health and social care, and their suggestions for improving health system partnerships. Methods Using stakeholder engaged principles and a qualitative Rapid Assessment Process, we conducted brief surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews with 65 key informants from 36 CBOs working with WPC-LA. Results Major themes identified by CBOs included: 1) the importance of a holistic, client-centered, continuously engaged approach that is reliant on regional partnerships; 2) benefits of WPC-LA expanding capacity and networks; 3) concerns about communication and redundancy hindering WPC-LA; and 4) a need for more equitable partnerships incorporating their approaches. Conclusions CBOs value opportunities for integration with health systems, bring critical expertise to these partnerships, and seek to strengthen cross-sector collaborations. Early, equitable, and inclusive participation in the development and implementation of these partnerships may enhance their effectiveness, but requires policy that prioritizes and incentivizes sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships.

Thoughtful Investing in Social Care Management

“…Research on growing partnerships between CBOs and health care organizations have highlighted the process of increased referrals from health care to CBOs but have found overall poor and disorganized communication from health care staff to the partner CBOs. As health care organizations develop electronic referral practices to refer their patient CBOs, CBOs have reported difficulty managing the workflow, giving feedback, or otherwise engaging with the referring health care organization to provide patient-centered care (Agonafer et al, 2021; Nohria et al, 2023; Taylor & Byhoff, 2021). CBOs describe impersonal referral processes and difficulty identifying a point person when issues arise.…”

Trusted messengers and trusted messages: The role for community-based organizations in promoting COVID-19 and routine immunizations

“…When a CBO consistently delivers on their mission (e.g., housing the homeless, securing jobs for the jobless, feeding the hungry) in a transparent and “ Competent ” way, these “Results” broaden the trust and influence to enhance greater access and adoption of given goals within the community. These components, as adapted from the virtuous cycle of a Trust and Influence Loop model by LeadingAgile [36] , are useful to understand because of growing interest in supporting innovative ways to identify and address health-related social needs, particularly of the most vulnerable communities [37] . While the core concepts of building relationships of trust in vulnerable communities to eventually transform health is well-documented in the health literature [27] , [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] , [33] , [34] , [35] , [38] , [39] , [40] , [41] , our use of these specific steps from this business marketing Trust and Influence Loop model is a novel application to the vaccine decision-making literature.…”

“…This can have an impact on individual vaccine-decision making, particularly among communities hesitant to vaccinate, with COVID-19 or routine vaccines, because of questions and concerns about the vaccines or the system responsible for development and administration immunizations. As public health seeks to develop tailored messages in a hyperlocal context, a greater understanding of how to develop, manage and sustain partnerships with community and social services organizations is needed [37] . This study explores how: 1) CBOs develop trust and build influence in the communities they serve and 2) how might collaboration with CBOs be useful to informing public health strategies in tailoring vaccine and other health messages.…”

Community-based mutual aid for improving financial access tos healthcare: case study of 150 community-based organizations in Cameroon

“…[10][11][12] CBO contribute also to promote community medicine/ community health. [13][14][15][16][17][18] In Cameroon, many CBO have existed and have been developing endogenously for a long time, especially from the promulgation of the laws on the freedoms, and particularly that on the freedom of association in 1990. According to Aboubakar et al in the face of difficulties in accessing healthcare, some of these organizations set up a disease-related financial risk coverage system to reduce the health costs of their members.…”