Letter to Our Community

Dear Friend,

For more than 156 years, University Hospitals has compassionately cared for our Northeast Ohio community. Our founders committed that in establishing our great institution, “The most needy should be considered the most worthy." Just as we have cured disease and innovated new standards of care over the decades, we have also steadfastly worked to address social determinants of health and the root causes of health inequities.

We are proud of the $531 million we invested in the community in 2021 and $3.5 billion over the last decade, but we know we can and must do more.

Because innovation is in our DNA, and we know narrowing the health care disparity gap improves a community’s quality of life, we re-engineered the way we think about investments in our community. In fact, we made it a major component of our strategic plan.

Our industry is constantly challenged to do more with less, as payer reimbursements continue to trail the cost of care. We asked ourselves, what can we do differently so we have the ability to grow investment in our mission and our community, have a more meaningful impact where needs are greatest, while at the same time, advancing our focus on health equity.

First, we determined we can be much more strategically focused about how we approach sponsorships by centralizing our decision-making and having one front door. Second, we wanted to make sure those investments could really have an impact and that they align with our values and priority needs as defined by our Community Health Needs Assessments, which are conducted every three years. And importantly, we saw an opportunity to leverage the power of our more than 30,000 caregivers in a way that not only makes an impact in the community, but also facilitates team-building among our caregivers.

These initial steps sparked the development of a community health investment strategy that leverages three pillars and five focus areas. • Anchor & Social Venture Investment provides us the opportunity to make place-based investments with large-scale impact designed to improve community conditions and address social determinants of health. • Social Service Investment is where we partner with organizations and agencies outside of UH to engage with our patients and community. • Regional Community Health Investment involves the more traditional concept where our community hospitals and ambulatory centers provide various programming for health and wellness.

Our five focus areas include Workforce Development, Anchor Strategies, Well-being & Safety, Food Security and Maternal & Child Health.

On the following pages we illustrate some of the activities already under way in these areas.

As an anchor institution, we are humbled by our unique responsibility to influence population health and advance economic opportunities for our communities. We’ve made great strides in contributing to the health and welfare of Northeast Ohioans, and now as the Hometown Team, we are building on this legacy through our implementation of a thoughtful, bi-directional, data-driven strategy that allocates resources where needs are greatest. In doing so, we can have a more significant impact on our mission – To Heal. To Teach. To Discover. At the same time, we enhance partnerships with our community, better promote health equity and wellness, and maximize health care value.

To move the needle forward, we need transformative approaches that prioritize expanding access to high-quality care, delivery outcomes, total experience and cost of care. University Hospitals has pledged to do its part to change the narrative from being providers of health care to being promoters and agents of health equity.

The community is our patient. The community is our collaborative partner. The community is UH.

Thank you for allowing UH to be your Hometown Team.

CLIFF A. MEGERIAN, MD, FACS

Chief Executive Officer, University Hospitals Jane and Henry Meyer Chief Executive Officer Distinguished Chair HEIDI L. GARTLAND

Chief Government & Community Relations Officer, University Hospitals