Public-Private Partnerships
 

Public–private partnerships are increasingly being used to tackle large, complicated, and expensive public health problems.  These partnerships create innovative strategies and positive consequences for established public health goals, along with creating means to address difficult problems by leveraging the ideas, resources, and expertise of different partners.

The T2X Project

This project was created as a result of a partnership between Health Net, Inc., UCLA School of Public Health, and EPG Technologies. It was funded by a $1.1 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant that tested whether an online social network would increase teens' capacity to access and use insurance, become more engaged in their healthcare and health behavior decisions, and develop pro-health attitudes. The T2X website offers a teen-only community of users and uses interactive and participatory communication methods that cover lifestyle issues such as nutrition, stress management, and substance abuse.

Public Health and Land Use Planning

In 2003, this partnership was established between the American Planning Association (APA) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and aims to restore the bridge between landuse planning, community design, and public health practice. The project’s goal is to promote an interdisciplinary approach to creating and maintaining healthy communities. Their long-term objectives include improving the performance of local planning and public health agencies by providing tools, resources, and networks to foster improved collaboration.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/Y-USA National Partnership

As a joint effort to expand public health impact by developing and innovating community-based strategies, this partnership paired the resources and technical expertise of the federal government with YMCAs across the U.S. The goal of the partnership is to widely circulate evidence-based and promising community interventions that reduce the burden of diseases and improve the health of the local communities. The CDC/Y-USA are currently developing and refining a Community Health Web Portal that will feature CDC-based resources, tools, and proven community interventions to assist local YMCAs and other community partners with their program development, implementation, and evaluation efforts. This partnership presents an opportunity for Y-USA to take the best community-based public health practices to communities served by local YMCA areas. For the CDC, this is an opportunity to link research and dissemination, and ultimately, accelerate research into practice by providing the Y-USA with resources and information about state-of-the-art strategies and lessons learned.

The Million Hearts™ Initiative

Launched in September 2011, this national initiative from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) aims to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes in the U.S. over the next five years. This public-private partnership, co-led by the CDC and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) promotes innovations to identify people with cardiac risk and ensure that they receive appropriate treatment along with promoting healthy diet and exercise to reduce current and future cardiac risk. Partners come from across the public and private health sectors, and include federal agencies; doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals; private insurers; businesses; health advocacy groups; and community organizations that will come together to support Million Hearts™ through a wide range of activities.

The Congestive Heart Failure Program

The collaboration between Alere Medical and the Blue Care Network of Michigan is aimed to increase physicians’ use of effective methods for treating congestive heart failure, increase members’ adherence to recommended medications and services, and help avoid unnecessary hospitalizations and emergency room visits. This is achieved by installing monitoring devices in patients’ homes that track their disease symptoms and the data is then automatically transmitted to cardiac-trained nurses who are able to identify changes in patients’ health statuses.

The Colorado Adult Immunization Coalition (CAIC)

The Colorado Adult Immunization Coalition (CAIC) is a statewide partnership that promotes vaccination of adults against life-threatening diseases such as influenza, pneumonia, and many others. The coalition is made up of healthcare professionals across many settings, state and local public health agencies, and business and community members who recognize that vaccines are not just for children.  Research suggests that effectiveness of some vaccines fade over time.  Additionally, new vaccines are available to fight a variety of illness, highlighting the importance of adult vaccination and vaccination awareness.  

The Healthy Shelby Initiative

This initiative involves the non-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and multiple local hospitals, community agencies, and faith-based organizations to reduce the cost of medical care.  The Healthy Shelby initiative has three main goals: better management of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension; coordinated "end of life" care; and lower infant mortality rates. Healthy Shelby hopes to achieve this by shifting patient care away from emergency rooms and instead shifting it towards primary care physicians. The alliance’s overarching strategy is to work together to target specific illnesses, standardizing approaches to care at all cooperating local health and social services agencies.

“Don’t Bug Me” Flu Awareness and Prevention Campaign

Designed to educate the community on how healthy lifestyle habits can prevent getting or spreading the flu, this campaign joined the Hillcrest Medical Center and the Tulsa Health Department. Since the program’s initiation, more than 135,000 local children in 200 public and private schools have received the “Don’t Bug Me” message every year. The awareness effort is done throughout classrooms and business and is supported by materials provided along with public appearances and print, broadcast, and outdoor advertising.

The Healthy Northeast Pennsylvania Initiative

This initiative is a collaboration among member healthcare organizations and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Their goal is to assess and address community health needs; increase regional healthcare funding leverage for programs and services; and facilitate awareness,education and wellness for residents of Northeast Pennsylvania.