Partner with Patients and Communities
What does it mean to partner with patients and communities, and why is it important?
Patients and community members experience health care differently from providers and staff. They recognize barriers to care firsthand and offer invaluable insight into why inequities exist and how to address them. Their perspectives are essential, not supplementary. Without direct engagement, organizations risk developing solutions that miss the mark or reinforce existing inequities. True partnership means centering patient and community voices, not merely consulting them. It requires shared decision-making power, fair compensation for one’s time and expertise, and a commitment to long-term relationship building.
Prioritize early and sustained engagement by:
- Including patients and community representatives in focus groups, surveys, and planning discussions
- Ensuring diverse representation across race, gender, ethnicity, disability, immigration status, and other intersecting identities
- Compensating community members fairly for their time and contributions
- Embedding patient and community perspectives into both the root cause analysis and solution design
Engage communities from the very beginning. Organizations should involve community members before designing any intervention to ensure their perspectives shape the approach. If engagement has been lacking, pause and re-engage instead of moving forward based on assumptions.
The chart below details the steps as well as the approximate number of meetings for which to plan, while recognizing that the estimates will vary from team to team:
| Key Activities | Time Estimate: ~ 30+ Hours |
|---|---|
| Learn about partnership models and strategies | 2-3 one-hour meetings |
| Learn the history and existing avenues for partnerships | 2-3 one-hour meetings; additional activities as needed |
| Initiate practices to avoid exploitation and promote fair exchange | 2-3 one-hour meetings; additional activities as needed |
| Initiate building strong relationships | 1:1 contact meetings (estimates vary), 4-6 meetings to build rapport |
| Continue partnership and relational investment throughout the project | Variable; ongoing meetings and interactions/activities based on initiative requirements. |
How should I partner with patients and communities?
Begin by having your team review and discuss the Partnering with Members and Communities presentation below to align your team on why it is important to build strong partnerships in service of health equity. Then work through the resources that follow it for specific guidance on initiating and sustaining authentic partnerships:
Resources to Partner with Patients and Communities
Partnering with Members and Communities
This presentation guides how healthcare organizations can authentically partner with Medicaid members, patients, and community-based organizations (CBOs) to advance health equity.
It covers the rationale for community engagement, a spectrum of partnership approaches, and practical recommendations for building trust, avoiding tokenism, and applying these partnerships to diagnose and address root causes of health disparities.
Gathering Input from Individuals Experiencing Inequities: Practical Facilitation Guidance
Best practices for inclusive engagement, selecting identity-aligned facilitators, honoring intersectionality, and reporting back to community members
IMI’s SDOH Toolkit
Institute for Medicaid Innovation’s Value of Investing in Social Determinants of Health Toolkit — Actionable guidance and worksheets for building trust-based partnerships between Medicaid Managed Care Organizations and community-based organizations. However, the guidance can be adapted and tailored to many types of organizations.
The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership–(multiple authors and contributors; see page 1).
A framework for deepening community-driven decision-making across stages of engagement.
Designing and Implementing Integrated Care and Payment Transformation Initiatives to Advance Health Equity: Lessons Learned from Three Pioneering Health Care Provider and Health Plan Partnerships
Sometimes it’s helpful to learn from the experiences of others. This report presents case studies of care and payment transformation models designed and implemented by three pairs of health care provider and health plan partnerships to advance health equity. See page 30 for important takeaways about partnering with patients and community members.
Patient and Community Partnership Assessment
This assessment will help your team align on key aspects of its partnership with the local community.
About the Roadmap Goal and Objective Setting Tool
Use the Roadmap Goal and Objective Setting tool to facilitate and document the development, implementation, and evaluation phases of your health equity initiative. It will help your team realize your vision to reduce and eliminate health and healthcare inequities by providing a centralized resource to:
- establish process goals that align with each Roadmap component;
- document task status, identify project champions, and maintain detailed notes;
- monitor progress across multiple Roadmap components simultaneously; and
- promote consistent team communication, accountability, and progress.