"Investing in children’s health is the single most powerful means to ensure a healthy generation of Americans and a robust economy,” said R. Lawrence Moss, MD, FACS, FAAP, President and CEO of Nemours Children’s Health. “Our health anchor strategy will double down on our commitment to improving children’s nutrition, housing, education, and the economic opportunities for families in our communities.”
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (December 15, 2021) – Nemours Children’s Health announced today that it is joining the Healthcare Anchor Network in a major step to advance its vision of creating the healthiest generations of children. The Healthcare Anchor Network is a nationwide collaboration of more than 65 health systems, including only 5 pediatric health systems, that helps its members leverage business decisions to invest locally and inclusively to address social determinants of health and promote equity in surrounding communities.
"Investing in children’s health is the single most powerful means to ensure a healthy generation of Americans and a robust economy,” said R. Lawrence Moss, MD, FACS, FAAP, President and CEO of Nemours Children’s Health. “Our health anchor strategy will double down on our commitment to improving children’s nutrition, housing, education, and the economic opportunities for families in our communities.”
Earlier this year, Nemours Children’s announced its bold strategy to redefine children’s health, which includes eliminating health disparities and helping communities thrive economically. This approach to promoting whole child health, “Well Beyond Medicine,” recognizes that most determinants of children’s health actually occur outside hospital walls--at home, school, and the neighborhoods in which children live, learn, and play. Partnering with the Healthcare Anchor Network will enable Nemours Children’s to tap into best practices from health systems across the nation to better address root cause of poor health such as economic, racial, and environmental inequities.
“We are also eager to use this partnership to further the progress of our diversity, anti-racism, inclusion, value, and health equity (D.R.I.V.E.) initiative across our organization and to advance racial equity in the communities we serve by creating a pipeline to hire more diverse employees, purchase more goods and services from diverse suppliers, and strategically invest in our local communities,” said Kara Odom Walker, MD, MPH, MSHS, Executive Vice President and Chief Population Health Officer of Nemours Children’s Health.
The long-term goal of the Healthcare Anchor Network is to reach a critical mass of health systems adopting as an institutional priority to improve community health and well-being. By leveraging all their assets, health systems can make strategic decisions in hiring, purchasing, and investment designed for equitable, local economic impact.
“We are very excited to have Nemours Children’s Health, one of the country’s distinguished children’s health systems, join our network. Our goal is to scale adoption of the anchor mission approach and we are eager to work with the health system to ensure that children and their communities can be healthy and thrive,” stated David Zuckerman, Executive Director of the Healthcare Anchor Network.
Implementing strategies learned through the Healthcare Anchor Network will also build on Nemours Children’s work to align the financial incentives of the U.S. healthcare system to support a pay-for-health model that will lead to health equity. Healthy kids become healthier adults, making children’s health an engine for personal and national economic vitality.
For more on Nemours Children’s Health’s approach to social and economic determinants of health, please visit their website.
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About Nemours Children's Health
Nemours Children's Health is one of the nation's largest multistate pediatric health systems, including two free-standing children's hospitals and a network of nearly 75 primary and specialty care practices. Nemours Children's seeks to transform the health of children by adopting a holistic health model that utilizes innovative, safe, and high-quality care, while also caring for the health of the whole child beyond medicine. Nemours Children's also powers the world's most-visited website for information on the health of children and teens, Nemours KidsHealth.org.
The Nemours Foundation, established through the legacy and philanthropy of Alfred I. duPont, provides pediatric clinical care, research, education, advocacy, and prevention programs to the children, families and communities it serves.
About the Healthcare Anchor Network
The Healthcare Anchor Network (HAN) is a growing national collaboration of over 65 leading healthcare systems building more inclusive and sustainable local economies that have adopted the “anchor mission” to leverage their substantial economic resources to benefit those experiencing the greatest inequities through hiring, purchasing, and investing in local, disinvested neighborhoods, to help build communities where all can be healthy and thrive. With millions of community members experiencing avoidable negative health impacts, HAN exists to scale adoption of anchor mission strategies to help build communities where all can be healthy and thrive.
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