A program led by AMITA Health and other hospitals aims to help residents of Chicago’s west side.
The collaborative, West Side ConnectED, is designed to identify and address socioeconomic needs that factor into health outcomes for vulnerable patients.
Staff from AMITA Health Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center have partnered with their counterparts from the University of Illinois Hospital, Rush University Medical Center and Mount Sinai Hospital to develop and use a screening tool to assess and address the needs of patients who get care in their emergency departments.
“We wanted to learn, just like the rest of the hospitals, what are we seeing and then what can we do about it,” Cody McSellers-McCray, Executive Director of Community Health, AMITA Health, told Catholic Health World. AMITA Health also plans to use the model to build an overall strategy that could be used in all of its hospitals, even outside of the emergency department.
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago brought the hospitals together and linked them with partner agencies that provide needed social services.
Click here to read more about the collaborative in Catholic Health World.
