MetroHealth announces initiatives around housing, healthy food, job readiness and more - Crain's Cleveland Business

From new housing initiatives to school and job readiness programs to healthy food access, MetroHealth is taking seriously its role as the anchor institution of its West 25th Street neighborhood.

During a speech on Friday, June 28, at the health system's annual meeting, MetroHealth president and CEO Dr. Akram Boutros announced several new initiatives that aim to keep people healthy outside the four walls of the hospital.

"We're just getting started," Boutros repeated throughout the speech at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland.

As the system is transforming its own campus through a $1 billion project, it also is looking to fundamentally transform its neighborhood. MetroHealth will build more than 250 apartments, monetarily incentivize its employees to live in the neighborhood, bring job and school readiness programs to its neighbors, open summer lunch sites for schoolchildren and more.

"Advancing medical care has been the central focus of every hospital system," Boutros said. "For MetroHealth, it is only a part of what we do. We are driven by the relentless pursuit of healthy, thriving communities for everyone."

The system is launching the Institute for H.O.P.E. (Health, Opportunity, Partnership and Empowerment), which aims to remove barriers to "more education, better jobs, higher wages, healthier food, reliable transportation and adequate housing," Boutros said.

Susan Fuehrer, the outgoing leader of the VA Northeast Ohio Healthcare System who's joining MetroHealth as its president of social determinants of health and health equity, will lead the institute. Among its upcoming efforts:

• Beginning Monday, July 1, MetroHealth is opening four summer lunch sites for schoolchildren on its main campus and in the Old Brooklyn, Broadway and Buckeye neighborhoods. This is in partnership with the Greater Cleveland Food Bank and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

• An Economic Opportunity Center will offer residents the chance to learn how to navigate the internet, build skills in résumé writing and interviewing, as well as a grocery store with fresh food, legal counseling, financial literacy training, a food pantry, a workforce development center and a community kitchen.

• Next year, the institute will include a new Tri-C Access Center, bringing college education and job training to the neighborhood. The center at MetroHealth will train area residents for careers in health care, information technology, public safety and more, as well as offer services such as college- and career-readiness, English as a Second Language and Tri-C's Women in Transition Program.

• With the support of AT&T, Digital C and MCPc, the Institute for H.O.P.E. is connecting neighbors within three miles of the campus to affordable, high-speed internet and providing each home in the program with a free laptop, as well as free training in English or Spanish on how to use computers. MetroHealth is starting with 100 homes and aims for 1,000.

With a $60 million investment, MetroHealth is developing three buildings with more than 250 affordable and market-rate apartments in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood. The buildings, slated to be built on or near MetroHealth's main campus, also will house community support programs, such as fresh food offerings, child care and job training services.

The system hopes to spur economic development, provide new housing opportunities for current residents and attract new residents to a revitalized West 25th Street.

First, up to 72 affordable one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments will be built at the corner of West 25th and Sackett Avenue, where there is currently a parking lot. These will be available to those earning 30% to 80% of the area's median income. The first floor will be home to the Economic Opportunity Center, part of the Institute for H.O.P.E.

Another five-story complex with up to 110 apartments will be available to medical residents, and a third building with 80 units will be available to anyone in the community. These market-rate apartments will offer one- and two-bedroom units and have direct access to the transformed campus's 12-acre park. The first floors of these two buildings will house MetroHealth's police department, as well as commercial spaces for businesses such as a coffee shop, grocery store, child care center and restaurants.

"Our neighbors are excited about the opportunities this transformation will create, and we want to know how best we can serve them," Boutros said. "We have scheduled community meetings in the coming weeks to hear what they have to say. We are committed to listening, to working together, to building a community that, like MetroHealth, welcomes all people. A neighborhood we all want to live in."

Boutros also announced the launch of an employee housing-assistance program that aims to bring another 300 MetroHealth families to its neighborhood, as well as to support those already living there.

MetroHealth will offer qualified families up to $20,000 in a forgivable loan to buy a home around its Old Brooklyn or main campuses. Families already in the area may be eligible for $8,500 in matching funds to upgrade their homes.

"Those employees must continue to work at MetroHealth, in good standing, for five years," Boutros said. "After that, they don't have to pay a cent back. It's our investment in them so they can invest in our neighborhood."

MetroHealth wants to rein in health care costs and reduce patients' out-of-pocket costs, which are becoming a major barrier to care, Boutros said.

He announced that over the next few years, MetroHealth will "radically reduce" the cost of lab tests, infusions and imaging in new nonhospital locations. In collaboration with "a leading radiology equipment company," MetroHealth has formed Lumina Imaging, which will open high-tech neighborhood radiology centers offering CT scans and MRIs for up to 70% less than the cost at health systems.

"These centers will be open by the middle of next year and will not only reduce financial burden, they will deliver care in facilities designed for customer service," Boutros said. "And they will provide care with the same high-quality equipment and expert radiologists you'll find in our hospitals."

MetroHealth also is offering thousands of college students in four states access to its Doc2Go telemedicine service with a $0 copay. MetroHealth launched the service in January for its employees, their spouses and children. Starting July 1, students at participating colleges in Ohio, Kentucky, Texas and Florida will be eligible to enroll in the new coverage program, which was made available by MetroHealth and its partners Campus Unity Benefits and Hawaii Mainland Administrators.

"This will be offered as part of students' college health program with no additional charge for the appointments," Boutros said. "We know this will provide more convenient, efficient care than urgent-care centers or emergency rooms. And it will bring peace of mind to students' families."

MetroHealth last year announced its For All of Us campaign, a five-year fundraising effort that aims to bring in $100 million in philanthropic support for core aspects of its campus transformation. At the annual meeting, Boutros announced the effort has raised $45 million.

The system provided every attendee of the meeting with $20 to donate to their choice of seven areas of need via an iPad outside the gathering. Boutros encouraged them to add to that $20.

Boutros began his speech by recapping MetroHealth's recent past and significant turnaround since he joined the system in 2013, a point in time when MetroHealth was an "almost-forgotten institution," he said.

The system has grown in facilities, employees, revenue, patients and more since then. Now, a major campus overhaul is underway.

He wrapped up his speech by asking attendees to look to the future.

"Now, I would like you to imagine a better future, a future where thousands of people no longer struggle with diabetes and heart disease, depression and suicide; a future with fewer illnesses brought on by the stress of poverty, violence, racism, lack of safe housing, lack of opportunities; a future where, together, we improve our community's health more than all the extraordinary medical professionals in our celebrated hospital systems combined."

Let's block ads! (Why?)