Community Coalitions Health Institute

In 2005, The Community Coalitions Health Institute (CCHI) was chartered by the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH) as a 501(c)3 affiliate organization with the mission to encourage, organize, and conduct research and evaluations of value-based health care purchasing activities. The goal of this research will be to identify best practices in value- based purchasing so that employer-led coalitions can implement such strategies in communities across the country.

In 2008 CCHI was charged with overseeing and administering NBCH’s Diabetes Seed Grant Program and a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CCHI reports to the CCHI Programs Committee and is governed by a Board of Directors drawn from the NBCH Board.

The following is a brief description of current CCHI initiatives:

eValue8 Research and Reporting Project

CCHI's first funded project- the eValue8 Research and Reporting Project - focuses on eValue8 and the need to better mine the eValue8 database and produce common report templates for different users. This is an important area of focus for CCHI, as the data collected by the common request for information has often been sited by industry stakeholders as a key source of information. The rich data base contains information about nearly 300 health plane, and when analyzed can reveal trends in employer expectations of health care plans.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

In 2005, NBCH was a subcontractor to Lewin and Associates for a very small and continuing AHRQ sponsored project to help support three coalition led initiatives in diabetes. The coalitions involved are the Mid-Atlantic Business Group on Health, the Greater Detroit Area Health Council, and the Memphis Business Group on Health. Jim Mortimer, former head of the Midwest Business Group on Health, was hired by AHRQ independently to help steer the overall project. Recently, Mr. Mortimer has taken the lead in developing a follow-on NBCH "spread" proposal for AHRQ that would build off this initial effort in three sites. A major focus will be to inventory the NBCH membership for descriptions of diabetes related projects for the purpose of then identifying and spreading best practice models.

eValue8 Data Infrastructure, Diabetes Report, and Obesity Content Project

CCHI recently submitted a proposal to Sanofi-Aventis that, like the eValue8 Research and Reporting Project, is focused on building the data infrastructure to better and more flexibly mine eValue8 data. Two other specific tasks are included in this proposal: generating a national eValue8 trend report on health plan performance related to diabetes management; and developing more expert/evidenced-based content for the obesity/weight management questions in the eValue8 tool.

Employer Best Practices in Weight Management and Worksite Wellness

Together with the New York Business Group on Health and Jeremy Nobel, MD, a practicing physician, researcher, and faculty member of the Harvard School of Public Health, CCHI has submitted a proposal to GlaxoSmithKline to a weight management project. The end goal of the project is to develop best practices in employer sponsored weight management programs. This project has also secured funding and will soon be getting underway.

Community Health Partnerships

CCHI received a five-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention beginning in October 2007 to drive improvement in community health systems across the country. The goal of the Community Health Partnerships Project is to strengthen existing relationships and catalyze new partnerships between the NBCH member coalitions throughout the U.S. and state and local public health agencies for the purpose of advancing population health strategies at the community level.