Evette De Luca, Partners for Better Health
Podcast host Peter Eckart joined Evette De Luca, former Executive Director of Partners for Better Health, during a site visit for their CIC-START project, which is leveraging multi-sector partnerships to create a shared definition and action plan for health equity related to the causes and drivers of obesity in Ontario, CA. The project will integrate its existing data platform into local health systems’ electronic medical records to provide a packaged screening intervention for health equity at hospitals and health centers across Ontario. Partners for Better Health was previously funded by the BUILD Health Challenge to systems and policy for long-term sustainability while expanding Health Hubs and environmental solutions across the City of Ontario.
This podcast is also available on iTunes, Stitcher, and TuneIn.
Additional Resources:
- Learn more about Partners for Better Health
- Read about their BUILD 1.0 project
- See what they are working on now with DASH CIC-START
Takeaways from the Interview
In the words of Evette De Luca…
1. Show the return on investment of health equity to make the value case to hospitals.
“Why should health equity matter to a hospital CEO? To me that’s part of the conversation and relationship building that needs to occur… If we can look at specific drivers that undergird overutilization or misuse of an emergency room and bring solutions to a hospital system so that costs are decreased and the bleed is stopped, that is part of operationalizing health equity.”
2. Meaningful collaboration requires significant investment from partners.
“We have a model of each of us as partners investing. We all share the expenses of this collaborative work and I think that is a really critical piece. We need to show that this work is important to each of us and show that we have the competencies and the budgets to move forward together. Otherwise, trust can’t be sustained.”
3. Learn to speak the same language as partners from other sectors.
“We need to really understand the specific language of each of the systems and take the time to learn that language and get away from the jargon.”