Collaborators Not Competitors: Improving Regional Community Health

This session focuses on how two regional health systems, BJC HealthCare and SSM Health, are collaborating to improve the overall health and well-being of the greater St. Louis region. It presents tangible ideas on how institutions can find common ground to improve the health of their patients and communities.

The St. Louis region faces significant health disparities across various demographics—from life expectancy, mental health and homelessness to lack of jobs, unstable communities and steady depopulation. Both BJC HealthCare and SSM Health recognize the importance of regional collaboration to address health disparities and are committed to developing cross-sectional regional solutions to improve community and population health.

During the 2024/2025 Community Health Needs Assessment/Community Health Improvement Plan cycle, BJC and SSM co-led the St. Louis Regional Hospital Collaborative to enhance the process—doubling the amount of survey respondents across the region from the past cycle, offering the survey in Spanish, and implementing new community conversations in collaboration with community-based organizations to center community voice. These changes were well received by local community nonprofits and helped foster and enhance trust in the process, as well as collaboration across sectors.

This collaborative spirit has led to several additional cross-sector initiatives in the region:

1. Collaborative community impact investing to leverage investment dollars with local financial institutions to improve health through housing and business development lending


2. Creation of a shared laundry facility to bring about jobs and overall community and economic development


3. A collaborative hospital to housing program for patients experiencing homelessness and mental health concerns, resulting in housing stabilization, reduced admissions and cost savings

Through these examples, learners will be able to see how health systems can come together as collaborators not competitors to improve community and population health. The short-term outcomes will include learning about real-life innovative examples from two regional health systems, and ways to find common goals through a shared prioritization process. The session will also include an exercise/tool to identify shared interests across industries and brief group discussion on how to collaboratively address health disparities.