In the evolving landscape of healthcare and social services, the emergence of community care hubs (CCHs) represents a significant step toward integrating these two sectors. What results could improve the experience of navigating life’s challenges as we grow, age, and build community.
Understanding community care hubs
At its core, a community care hub is a community-focused entity that centralizes administrative supports for a network of community-based organizations offering social services intended to improve health outcomes. By centralizing functions such as healthcare billing, compliance, technology applications, marketing, business development, network recruitment and management, and analytics, we can ensure that we are maximizing value that is only possible by bringing a network together, rather than approaching the work individually. The Partnership to Align Social Care published a guide that lists these functions and their related standards.
Community care hubs allow community-based and healthcare organizations to work in tandem to address health-related social needs, fostering a more holistic approach to care beyond traditional medical interventions. The Juniper community care hub, spearheaded by Trellis in Minnesota, has become a national model by integrating social care with healthcare to provide tailored services that meet local needs, leveraging trusted relationships with local community and healthcare organizations, and driving value for patients, healthcare providers, health insurers and public organizations.