The problem: Three years after the 167-year-old St. Joseph’s hospital in North Philadelphia closed—taking with it 675 jobs—Hahnemann Hospital announced its closing. The news sent shockwaves throughout our region, since the hospital served scores of Philadelphians and employed some 2,500 people, about 575 of whom were training to be physicians.1 Within a year, Mercy Hospital also announced it would close.
The solution: The Independence Blue Cross (IBX) Foundation partnered with PHMC, Penn Medicine, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to prevent the further erosion of hospital care in our nation’s poorest big city. In 2021, partners maintained a seamless operation of Mercy Hospital’s emergency department and delivered an array of other health services to residents of West Philadelphia.
IBX also supported an early evaluation of the Cedar partnership to gain insights into the factors contributing to the long-term viability of this innovative health care model. For two years, evaluators from the R&E Group and Drexel University gathered information from leaders, staff, and community members and laid the groundwork for future evaluation efforts. The infographics presented here summarize some of the findings from this work.
- Cedar Evaluation Summary of Baseline Findings
- Cedar Evaluation Summary of Community Survey
- Cedar Evaluation Key Informant Interview Findings
- Poverty and ER Use in Southwest Phila.
Our contributions:
- Established a Cedar evaluation committee and research board
- Shared early findings with Cedar’s community advisory board
- Conducted a representative residential health survey
- Interviewed key informants
- Gathered, analyzed, and patient intercept data
- Presented findings to Cedar staff, community members, and others
- Coalesced Cedar partners to discuss data sharing
- Supported our evaluation partner who conducted group model-building activities with health providers and community members invested in seeing Cedar succeed
Funder: Independence Blue Cross Foundation
Partners: Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health, PHMC’s Strategy Group, Penn Medicine, and CHOP
Key Findings: Partners shared the vision of Cedar as a vibrant community hub, were honored to have reputable institutions involved, and identified similar pressing needs of the community. They welcomed more information about the residential population. Community members and staff shared great ideas about future services and events at Cedar and discussed the importance of building trust through outreach. Results from the representative survey underscored the need to better publicize Cedar’s services through a variety of formats.
1 Kilaru & Mahoney (2020). The Death Throes of Mercy: Our Shared Responsibility When Hospitals Close. New England Journal of Medicine: 383:706-708. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2002953