Embracing an Anchor Mission: ProMedica’s All-In Strategy

Randy Oostra, CEO of ProMedica health system and LISC Board member, penned a report with the Democracy Collaborative describing how ProMedica embraces its role as an anchor in the Toledo community. ProMedica provides health care, but its leadership realizes medical care alone is not enough to truly impact patients’ health. So ProMedica also tries to improve the social determinants of health among Toledo residents – the ways in which people’s lifestyles and behavioral choices affect their health. These include availability and quality of housing, income levels, neighborhood safety and educational attainment, along with behavioral factors like nutrition, exercise and substance use.

As an anchor institution, ProMedica developed strategies for addressing the social determinants of health that necessarily take it outside the walls of its hospitals and health centers, as well as outside its traditional roles. The health system created a grocery store in Toledo’s Uptown area that brings fresh and healthy food to the neighborhood, but also provides residents with job training and employment opportunities. ProMedica also opened a Financial Opportunity Center to help families gain financial literacy, improve their credit and build assets. A section of the report discusses ProMedica’s work with LISC Toledo to create a loan pool for impact investing in the community. Through these and other efforts, ProMedica is attempting to improve the factors that are at the root of health and well-being.

The report includes a description of ProMedica’s major strategies, an in-depth look at the planning for the social determinants of health initiative and discussions of critical considerations like how ProMedica aligned its infrastructure to do the work, how it pays for it and how it measures success.