Community Collaboration
An Anchor for the Future
One belief unites all 24,000 of us at University of Utah Health: we believe health can be better.
That belief informs our excellence in patient care, education, and research. But we also believe it's essential to add community health as a fourth pillar of our institutional priorities.
Community health relies on individuals and organizations collaborating to solve complicated problems. We share a vested interest in making communities safe, vibrant, healthy, and stable. As a member of the national Healthcare Anchor Network, we are committed to using our economic and human resource assets to have greater impact on the communities we serve.
Working hand-in-hand with our populations is vital to both their long-term health and our future as an institution. Since no one organization can do this work alone, we're focused on listening to the community's collective wisdom and sharing our resources, expertise, and passion.
Together, we can create a better future for all Utahns.
Community Priorities
Every three years, we join a broad coalition of community representatives to identify our greatest health needs. The resulting Community Health Needs Assessment gives us a shared set of goals to work toward together. Our role is not to solve but to partner, convene, and amplify. We cannot implement programs without community at the table. Also, trust is not inherently given. In order for large institutions like University of Utah Health to be welcomed into these spaces, we have to demonstrate how we will show up differently. We have to listen. We have to reflect. We have to align. For the 2023-2026 CHNA, we have aligned the community’s priorities with our system strategy and will spend the next three years focused on culturally responsive care, community partnership, and population health.
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In Utah, we don’t have to look far to find passionate and brilliant partners who share this goal. We’re tackling some of the most important health issues facing our community, and working together, I believe we can achieve our shared goal: for each of us to live a healthy life.
Our Work in the Community
In our 2023 Report to Our Community, we highlight a few of the ways we're partnering to make our community healthier. With leaders around Utah, we're addressing behavioral health, chronic conditions, and health disparities while partnering with other stakeholders within U of U Health to coordinate collaboration efforts.
Our work is about finding community. It’s a struggle sometimes, but this is where we find belonging—when the people who are not exactly like you embrace your differences.
Upcoming Events
Our schools and colleges provide highly individualized experiences. Learners apply science to personalized medicine, improving health care delivery—and the health of our communities.
News About Our Work in the Community
Through bi-directional learning and support, we can continue to develop programs and adapt clinical care to improve not only community health but community wealth.
Partner With Us
It is our commitment to you—the reader, the patient, the civic leader, the community partner—that we will collaborate with you to better understand the needs of our friends and neighbors.
We’re focused on listening and learning so that we can support each other. We’re committed to developing programs and adapting clinical care to improve not only community health but community wealth.
We’d love to hear from you about how we can work together to make our community stronger.
