Community Impact Founded on Collaboration
Main Line Health takes a grassroots approach to community health, including an ongoing focus on community-identified concerns. It is a contrast from a traditional top-down approach that sets the System apart.
In this grassroots mode, the System follows two key pathways, both relying on collaboration:
- Carefully listen to what communities say they need.
- Determine how to effectively partner with community organizations and take action.
The System’s mission is to meet the healthcare needs of the communities we serve and to improve the quality of life for all people. Main Line Health provides a comprehensive range of care, from routine primary care services to acute and emergency care, from early prenatal care to dignified palliative care at the end of life. During the patient’s lifelong healthcare journey, the System supports rehabilitation, behavioral health and much more.
In addition, Main Line Health regularly solicits ideas, feedback and guidance from communities about what they specifically need from the System. Through regional Community Health Needs Assessment surveys and actively listening to community leaders and members, the System stays attuned to a broad range of challenges facing its neighbors and the effect they might have on health outcomes.
It is a panoramic view of health that quickly moves beyond the traditional bounds of medical science to consider issues such as access to care, food insecurity, bias, inclusivity, transportation needs, late or inadequate care, screenings, disease prevention, substance abuse and mood disorders.
The result is an interconnected web of interventions, supports, education, outreach and collaboration designed to overcome some of the most intractable and sometimes unseen hurdles to good health.
One example is food insecurity. If a patient with limited access to food is treated in a hospital emergency department and released but unable to get their next meal, how likely is a good outcome? What if their prescribed medications must be taken with food? What if they go hungry for a lengthy amount of time?
Main Line Health identifies potential issues with simple questions of food needs, provides food to individuals in need through several area resources (including its own farm) and works with other organizations to get the food delivered to homes. This practical initiative starts with action by Main Line Health, proceeds through collaboration and results in improved outcomes.
Another example is delay in seeking care. Administering tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), which dissolves blood clots that have traveled to the brain, is an advanced, successful treatment for stroke. But it can only be given within a certain time window. If patients delay seeking treatment, it might be too late for the medication to work. Main Line Health noticed it was treating more white patients than Black patients with tPA. By digging into the details, it became clear the gap in care was a delay in seeking care in the emergency department for Black patients.
The System is approaching the issue from multiple directions, including recruiting and hiring more healthcare professionals of color, collaborating with religious leaders and other influencers in Black communities, expanding public education about signs and symptoms of stroke and offering ongoing internal training aimed at eliminating bias. These connected steps could make a difference in how early a person experiencing a stroke arrives at a hospital, giving them the most treatment options.
These are just two examples of how Main Line Health relies on collaboration — both with and for the communities it serves — to have a meaningful impact on healthcare. Main Line Health believes this approach is paving a way for better health outcomes.