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Building Healthy, Equitable Communities
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Current Efforts

Overview

Anchoring San Mateo County Health

San Mateo County Health is a member of the Health Care Anchor Network (HAN). This is a national network of 50 hospitals and health systems that employ 1.5 million people, purchase over $50 billion annually and have over $100 billion in investment assets. As a network, we are committed to leverage our institutional powers to improve the well-being and health of communities. County Health continues to learn and embrace the anchor model to leverage our institutional and clinical practices to optimize community health outcomes.

Current efforts:

  • Making the case: Health Policy and Planning Program has conducted more than a dozen presentations to SMC Health units, sister County agencies, and external partners such as the Hospital Consortium, Health Plan of San Mateo County, and SAMCEDA policy committee, to spark interest and commitment to the anchor mission. 
  • Leveraging the power of the Healthcare Anchor Network: along with 38 other HAN members, County Health signed onto “Racism is a Public Health Crisis” statement and is committed to take action to address structural racism in our institution and community. Learn more about our efforts to achieve racial health equity through the Government Alliance on Race and Equity’s work
  • Promoting inclusive and local workforce development:
    • EMT Career Pathways: San Mateo County is committed to inclusiveness and to developing a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community. Health Policy and Planning Program has partnered with EMS Corps. to train local young residents interested in serving disadvantaged communities to build a career in the emergency medical field. To this date 19 San Mateo County residents have participated in the training and started careers as EMTs, nursing, and firefighting.
  • Promoting inclusive and local sourcing:  
    • Farm to San Mateo Medical Center Cafeteria Initiative: The San Mateo Medical Center (SMMC) has partnered with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers to work with their distributor to source local, seasonal produce from small family farms to leverage the purchasing power of SMMC to support the local economy.
    • Farm to Schools Initiative: Health Policy and Planning Program works closely with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), which has partnered with several local school districts to assist them with purchasing local, seasonal produce from small farmers.
    • Technical assistance to partners: HPP provided technical support to the Office of Sustainability to inform a couple of policies in the making that will benefit from inclusive and local sourcing strategies.  
  • Inclusive capital investment
    • Provided technical support to the County’s Department of Housing to add inclusive hiring and procurement language in an affordable housing request for proposal. The RFP included specific targets to hire economically disadvantaged workers and to source from minority owned enterprises. Developers response to the targets were overwhelmingly positive.
    • In partnership with the County’s Project Development Unit, SMC Health incorporated inclusive hiring and sourcing interview questions for the South San Francisco Health Campus’s Construction Manager Risk request for proposal.