In the fall of 2002, Catholic Healthcare West became a partner in a Community Benefit Demonstration project called Advancing the State of the Art in Community Benefit (ASACB). Additional partners include St. Joseph's Health System, a health system with 14 hospitals, in California and Texas; Texas Health Resources, a faith-based system with 15 hospitals; and independent hospitals Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, Palo Alto, CA; and Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, CA.

The goal of this project is to align the governance, management, and operations of the partner institutions to return the optimal value of their charitable assets to local communities.

At the core of the project is the development and implementation of a uniform accounting and performance monitoring system that will:

• provide a framework for comparative analysis and performance assessment,
• establish incentives for enhanced institutional commitment,
• encourage strategic investment of resources to build community capacity,
• increase emphasis on primary prevention, and
• create a model to quantify community benefit activities that is exportable to other hospitals, health systems, HMO's, foundations, and regulatory agencies.

The demonstration project is being implemented in two phases. Phase I was implemented October 1, 2002 - October 31, 2004. It focused on the development of accounting tools and performances measures to guide institutional reforms. Phase II began on January 1, 2004 and will end on March 31, 2006. It will focus on the piloting of institutional reforms in selected facilities of institutional partners. The pilot sites for Catholic Healthcare West are Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, CA; Mercy and Memorial Hospitals in Bakersfield, CA; and St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino, CA. The facilities will conduct a comprehensive review of existing Community Benefit programs to align them with ASACB core principles. In addition, they will focus efforts around two Special Focus Content Area projects in the areas of Obesity and Access to Care. At the end of Phase II, institutional reforms will be implemented at the remaining CHW facilities.

For more information please visit: ASACB.org