Our January member innovations focus on the use of art in health care. Research has shown the healing power of art, and NAPH members have developed creative programs in which they utilize art in a variety of forms to enhance patient healing, staff satisfaction and community partnerships. Many of the local artists involved in these programs gain important benefits such as exposure for their work and the opportunity to share it with those who need it most. But what happens when the artist becomes the patient?

Many full-time artists are uninsured. And the challenges they face accessing health care has led them to become an at-risk population. But two hospitals within the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) have implemented an innovative program that allows artists to barter their talent for health care services. On Jan....

Norton Healthcare’s journey toward becoming an accountable care organization (ACO) began well before the organization developed a contract with Humana – its payer-partner – and the two were selected as a pilot site in the Brookings–Dartmouth ACO Pilot Program. As detailed in The Commonwealth Fund case study, Norton Healthcare: A Strong Payer–Provider Partnership for the Journey to Accountable Care, Norton “devoted time and investment to improving its delivery of care” before implementation of the ACO model became a reality....

St. Luke’s Health System is opening a new Wood River facility to serve its community – but not in typical, clinical fashion. Described as a “living laboratory” in a recent TechCrunch post, St. Luke’s Center for Healthcare Innovation will serve as a host for innovative health technology. Using a venture philanthropy approach, St. Luke’s leadership hopes to attract technology innovators looking for a real-life testing site in which to implement their ideas.

There is much to be gained for those innovators who choose to use the facility. In addition to giving innovators direct contact with providers and patients, St. Luke’s serves a broad, demographically diverse community, which provides a more comprehensive population representation....

This New Year marks another year closer to Medicaid expansion in 2014 and Medicare’s Value Based Purchasing Program for fiscal year 2013. Both are part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010. While NAPH works with safety net hospitals to adapt to health reform through various projects, like the NAPH Safety Network, hospitals also have to continue addressing problems present before and after health reform. Domestic violence or intimate partner violence (IPV) is one of those ongoing challenges for hospitals.

The CDC separates IPV into four types: physical violence, sexual violence, threats of physical or sexual violence, and psychological/emotional violence. Any one of the four types constitutes as IPV, and there is no frequency or severity threshold for defining IPV....

As CEO of a public healthcare system, it’s not often that I get a chance to be an insider in the world of movie making. But in this job, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected and in this case, it’s The Waiting Room, a powerful new documentary film featuring patients of Alameda County Medical Center. The film will debut at a number of movie festivals early next year and will air on PBS in the fall.

When the director Pete Nicks first approached us, we were concerned such a film had the potential to portray our patients and system in an unflattering manner. We had moved the organization through a challenging six-year period that returned ACMC to financial health. We were also in the midst of transforming ourselves into a patient-centric organization that would greatly improve issues like waiting time for patients....

When you journey to the safety net hospitals and clinics that serve some of the neediest Americans, you will invariably find yourself in the heart of the urban core.

Nearby you will see establishments such as liquor stores, convenience stores and fast food restaurants. But more often than not, you will not see grocery stores that offer healthy foods at affordable prices.

This is certainly the case at the urban core campus of Truman Medical Centers (TMC) in Kansas City, where I am the president and CEO. Truman is one of the most crucial safety net hospitals in the Kansas City area, providing services to more than 56,000 Medical Home patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, congestive heart failure, hypertension and obesity every year.

Yet, while my office is about a minute away from a purveyor of cheeseburgers and fries, it is quite a distance from the closest fresh produce case....

William Bruno, M.D., pediatric medical director of Memorial Integrated Health at Memorial Healthcare System, sits at a table surrounded by an integrated health care team. They’re discussing 10-year-old Dyman Hicks, who shares a chronic illness with her mother – end-stage renal disease. Bruno pauses at this fact, and then listens intently as Social Worker Eneida Medina describes Dyman’s demeanor during a recent visit to her home. “There are many situations where a nurse goes to the home and tells us, ‘my patient needs a little bit more care,’” Bruno explains. “That’s why it’s so vital that we have the social worker and the nurse at the meeting.”

Bruno and his team at Memorial Healthcare System are practicing interprofessional collaboration, which involves multiple health professionals working collaboratively in fully functional teams. And nurses are increasingly being seen as an important part of these teams....

Of the many health care policy issues to gain headlines in the past couple of years, perhaps the drug shortage issue is the most novel – a surprising and difficult to understand problem, which received almost no news until very recently. How is it that in the wealthiest nation in the world, hospitals and doctors are struggling to access life-saving pharmaceuticals?

As with almost everything in Washington, the answer is controversial. One common argument is based in neo-classical economics. The argument goes something like this: the price of some drugs is so low that too little of it is produced to meet demand, therefore shortages occur. The answer is to raise the price of the product to the point that more of it is made and demand is met. The narrative then follows that the price of drugs is too low because of federal policy, which artificially deflates prices. Once those policies are removed, the market will adjust and shortages will disappear....

It’s easy to get consumed by the data. When we talk to members about their programs and initiatives, we always want to know the numbers. How many? What percentage? What cost? The numbers help us measure the benefits of new initiatives. They help us quantify quality and need. So yes, the numbers are important. So important, that it can be all too easy to forget about the people behind the figures. It’s hard to justify funding or legislation on the basis of one person served. But each person served is reason enough to keep working for the safety net.

I recently came across the story of Guedalia Sawadogo, a 2-year-old West African girl who, until recently, was facing a life with her right hand permanently frozen in the form of a claw. When toddling around her home as a 9 month old, Guedalia stumbled into a pot of cooking oil and suffered third-degree burns to her right hand....

Today is World AIDS Day and this year it's about “Getting to Zero” – Zero New HIV Infections. Zero Discrimination and Zero AIDS Related Deaths.

Backed by the United Nations, the “Getting to Zero” campaign runs until 2015 and builds on last year’s successful World AIDS Day “Light for Rights” initiative encompassing a range of vital issues identified by key affected populations (from worldaidscampaign.org).

According to the CDC, nearly 1.2 million people are living with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) in the U.S. (an estimated 1,178,350 adults and adolescents), and one in five of those (20 percent) are unaware of their infections. Despite increases in the total number of people living with HIV in the U.S. in recent years, the annual number of new infections has remained relatively stable overall....