West Side United (WSU) is an anchor collaborative on Chicago's west side whose members include HAN members Rush University Medical Center, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Ascension WSU members discussed the anchor collaborative's strategies for the AMA Prioritizing Equity Series.
Dr. David Ansell, Rush University Medical Center:
Structural racism, economic disinvestment, these are historical trends, but they're perpetuated in the day-to-day, and we had been bystander to it and so we had accountability. That launched our anchor mission. We decided we become an anchor institution to hire locally, purchase locally, invest locally, and volunteer locally. That led us to say, "Well, we can't do it alone. Let's get the other hospitals in and the community in." And that led to West Side United.
Ayesha Jaco, West Side United:
Once Rush began to reorganize itself and really commit to health equity within its doors as well as bring along peer institutions, the table that was set that formed West Side United was all about galvanizing the collective impact of the six health care systems in our network that really have the West Side as its backyard to some degree. So in doing that, that really set an expectation for there to be early wins within the anchor mission space in a collaborative way, where you had historical competitors coming together to really take on collective targets around hiring, procurement. As we're talking about today, social impact investing.
Fillmore Linen Service just opened in North Lawndale on the west side of Chicago and HAN members Rush University Medical Center and Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago are the first customers. The local healthcare laundry linen business is part of a larger job creation and West Side neighborhood community wealth building initiative. The project was led by West Side United.
From the Chicago Sun-Times article:
Fillmore Center aims to create more than 250 jobs and generate more than $9 million in annual income for North Lawndale’s economy.
Seven years after renovations are completed, the building will be placed into a community benefit trust that allows residents to share and manage profits from the building — making it one of the few examples in the country.
#SDoH #healthequity #AnchorMission #CommunityWealth #racialequity #economicjustice
