OREANDA-NEWS. GE announced today the HealthyCities Leadership Academy, a program that encourages U.S. communities to work together to develop population health improvements by partnering with public and private entities. The National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation support these ambitious goals and will collaborate with GE’s healthymagination commitment on the initiative.

The HealthyCities Leadership Academy includes an open innovation challenge focused on selecting up to 10 communities from across the country that will win up to $25,000 and a chance to secure additional funding during a year-long learning collaborative. The goal of the program is to train community and business leaders to work together to develop and support new models for approaching population health challenges and improve the health of working families living in their cities, towns and communities.

“GE has a strong commitment to improving population health,” said Sue Siegel, CEO, GE Ventures and healthymagination. “Previously, governments, foundations, and private organizations have united to develop and execute programs designed to improve the health of local communities. However, these partnerships have rarely included or relied on local businesses to achieve their goals. We believe that leveraging the strengths of businesses can enable communities to more effectively develop and implement community health initiatives.”

GE’s healthymagination commitment focuses on better health for more people, and continuously develops and invests in innovation to improve the lives of people around the world. Whether it is a program focused on the built environment, kindergarten readiness, personal health improvement, access to care, childhood obesity, smoking cessation, or programs focused on any of the other social determinants of health – the Healthy Cities Leadership Academy will look at how communities plan to leverage the strengths of businesses and public entities to more effectively develop and implement community health initiatives.  

“The stakeholders required to make change happen include entities like social service units, school systems, employers, environmental quality, and law enforcement,” said Dr. David Kindig, Co-Chair of the Roundtable for Population Health Improvement at the National Academy of Medicine. “Many times they have never coordinated efforts with traditional public health agencies, the healthcare delivery system, or community-based organizations. The leadership by GE and its partners to identify new, creative and economically sustainable ways to affect the broader social determinants of health such as the social, economic and physical environment factors is an exciting opportunity.” 

Winning communities will be determined after a deliberate and thorough evaluation of all eligible entries by a panel of distinguished judges who have expertise in the fields of population health, public health, and healthcare. The judges include:

  • Honorable Donald Berwick: Dr. Berwick was most recently the Administrator for the Medicare and Medicaid Services, HHS, where he was responsible for implementation of the Accountable Care Act. Prior to this role, he founded and was CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.   
  • Dr. Bechara Choucair: Dr. Choucair is Senior Vice President, Safety Net Transformation and Community Health, Trinity Health. Prior to this position, he was the Health Commissioner for the City of Chicago, Illinois.
  • Dr. David Kindig: Dr. Kindig is Emeritus Professor for Population Health Sciences and Emeritus Vice-Chancellor for Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin. He is also Emeritus Co-Chair of the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and also developed with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation the County Health Rankings model for population health.   
  • Dr. James S. Marks:  Dr. Marks is Executive Vice President, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  He oversees all program, communication, research, and policy activities in support of the Foundation’s vision to build a “Culture of Health” in America.  Prior to this position, Marks served as Assistant Surgeon General and Director of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  • Elizabeth Mitchell: Mitchell is President & CEO of the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), a national network of 35 multi-stakeholder collaboratives across the U.S.  She also serves as Vice-Chair of the Physician Focused Payment Technical Advisory Committee at HHS.  Prior to leading NRHI, Mitchell was the CEO of the Maine Health Management Coalition. 

The learning collaborative will formally kick off with a two-day, in-person workshop at GE’s Global Leadership Institute in Crotonville, New York, in October 2016. Activities that follow include in-person and virtual training sessions by experts in the field of health and the broader determinants of population health, site visits by many of these experts and GE to provide peer support and mentorship around the winning community program being implemented, and other opportunities to create connections, partnerships and innovations that incubate and scale their ideas. At the conclusion of the program in 2017, the most successful communities will compete for additional funds from a total pool of $250,000.

About GE

GE (NYSE:GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. GE is organized around a global exchange of knowledge, the "GE Store," through which each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry. 

About GE’s healthymagination commitment

GE’s healthymagination commitment is about better health for more people. We continuously develop and invest in innovations that deliver high-quality, more affordable healthcare to more people around the world.