With rising costs, persistent health inequities, and gaps in care access, there is a heightened focus across sectors on new approaches to achieve better health outcomes. Policy and industry practices are shifting to prioritize value over volume. New payment and delivery models, and value-based contracting are aiming to reduce costs while improving patient care and community health. In addition, a broadening recognition of the critical role of the social determinants of health is forging increasingly common ground for providers of health care and human services.

There are myriad permutations of partnerships between health care organizations and community-based organizations emerging across the U.S. Leaders are navigating new relationships, programs, and processes–even new definitions of “health” and “outcomes”–among their many, varied stakeholders, driven by a shared desire to improve the health and well-being of people and communities, while keeping costs down.

The Partnership for Healthy Outcomes–comprised of Nonprofit Finance Fund, Center for Health Care Strategies, and the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–set out to capture and analyze the lessons emerging in this dynamic space, as organizations explore partnerships to achieve greater outcomes together than they could on their own. A national request for information asked specifically about partnerships between health care organizations and community-based organizations. It produced a wealth of data from a wide range of partners in a wide variety of partnerships.

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