Michigan-based nonprofit Altarum Institute has announced the launch of its new $7 million Mission Projects Initiative. The self-funded Initiative is designed to solve pressing health care issues using systems methods at institutional, organizational, and community levels.

“Altarum Institute’s mission is to improve human health,” said Lincoln Smith, President and CEO of Altarum. “The Mission Projects Initiative combines Altarum’s financial and technical resources and applies them in communities that have seen their health and health care challenges go unaddressed.”

The initial three Mission Projects will be conducted simultaneously, lasting approximately two years. The projects, designed and conducted in concert with local and national partners, will take place at selected pilot program sites around the country. The pilot sites will serve as laboratories where best practices can be studied and new methods modeled.

The first Mission Project will focus on preventing childhood obesity by supporting health-promoting changes in clinical, community, corporate, and governmental sectors. The second project seeks to facilitate integration and coordination of community health and social services for veterans. The third project will foster innovation in community health centers – free or reduced-cost local clinics that provide care to the poor and uninsured.

Each project will attempt to achieve improvements at the pilot program sites that can be sustained once Altarum’s direct involvement is complete. At the conclusion of the projects, Altarum will share best practices and suggested policy and practice improvements so that solutions can be replicated nationwide.

“Our goal with the Mission Projects is simple. First-and-foremost, we hope the dollars and tools we provide will improve the health status of the individuals and communities involved in these projects,” said Smith. “If we achieve nothing else, we will have succeeded. But we believe the ultimate impact will be greater. We expect each project to make its own ‘ripple’ – creating a model for systems-based change in health care that can be replicated in communities across the nation.”

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