HIO Friends and Partners,

It has been an inspiring and insightful 2023 at Health Impact Ohio! The theme “momentum” comes to mind as I reflect on the year, one that has shaped our organization in ways we couldn’t have imagined as it began. We’ve worked to continue fulfilling our mission of improving social drivers of health, health equity, access and quality through community engagement and partnership, multistakeholder training and coaching, data collection and integration, and strategy development and deployment. All with one goal in mind: eliminating health disparities and helping to achieve optimal health outcomes for all people in every community.

HIO continues to be a leader in statewide efforts to provide quality improvement coaching with medical practices across the state. As part of the statewide Heart Healthy Ohio project, our quality improvement team has provided successful coaching that has resulted improvement in controlling blood pressure in hypertensive minority patients from around 66% to 71% of patients in participating practices over a three-year period. As we head into 2024, HIO’s quality improvement work will expand into several new initiatives, including Ohio Department of Medicaid QI initiatives and a much-needed effort to address physician and care team burnout.

Our Central Ohio Pathways HUB program has continued to grow and thrive, gaining state and national recognition for the innovative approaches to community health worker (CHW) led care coordination. The HUB has engaged 15 care coordination agencies in nine Ohio counties with forty CHWs employed. CHWs in our HUB have, to date, served 5,756 individuals. These CHWs are not only educating, referring, and helping their clients navigate health, social and/or workforce systems but 93% of the time, an outcome of verified connections to care and services, is achieved. Not only does this mean that clients reach their goals of better overall health, but in most cases, these outcomes generate payment via Medicaid Managed Care Organizations or other payers, bringing financial sustainability to our community for addressing otherwise unmet needs. Within the HUB work, we are extremely proud to highlight that 98% of babies born to mothers working with HUB CHWs have babies born at a healthy birthweight and that to date, CHWs in the HUB have housed 161 individuals and families through their services.

HIO’s Education and Equity team continues to enrich the lives of future and current CHWs. Our CHW Certification Training Program has now facilitated 10 cohorts of CHW students of all ages, races, genders, geographies, and backgrounds since 2021. 191 statewide participants have graduated since inception of the program; 65 of those individuals have successfully attained CHW certification through the Ohio Board of Nursing (OBN) in 2023 alone. In 2022, we began piloting CHW Certification Training for high school students and with generous support from the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Health and the City of Columbus in 2023, HIO expanded the number of high school students trained. Enabling a young, eager generation to be job-ready and connected with living-wage employment as Certified CHWs the moment they receive their high school diploma renews our commitment to this work with each graduation ceremony.

We’ve been thrilled to continue the “Community Health Workers for COVID Response and Resilient Communities (CCR)” with the Ohio Department of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The amount of outreach, training and networking this opportunity has provided us to work with CHWs and the 12 Pathways Community HUBs across Ohio has been the impetus to new and exciting endeavors, including a statewide conference that welcomed 300 CHWs to Columbus for a one and a half day of learning and collaboration. The momentum and connections our CCR Team have made has allowed for over 450 CHWs across the state to engage in bi-monthly educational trainings on topics that they can take directly into the field with them.

We’ve also made great strides in shining a light on CHWs and the work that they do statewide. We are currently working with state partners to roll out the Center for CHW Excellence, which was created and funded at a total of $5 million over 2 years through the state of Ohio’s biennial budget process. The Center will highlight the CHW workforce and its needs in our state, which has grown exponentially over the last several years.

All this work would be impossible without the unwavering leadership, support and counsel of our Board of Directors, as well as our dedicated staff and consultant team, who make even the most challenging work a joy. Our team truly hopes that you enjoy this year’s annual report, as much as our team has enjoyed reflecting upon 2023. We invite you to join us, always, in continuing the progress and impact we’ve made and the momentum we will carry into 2024.