Stratis Health Announces 2013 Building Healthier Communities Award Recipients

Published Sunday, March 3, 2013

Stratis Health, in celebration of Patient Safety Awareness Week, March 3-9, 2013, announces two new recipients of its Building Healthier Communities award: the Center for Population Health and University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing. This Stratis Health award supports initiative work that promotes a culture of health care quality and patient safety in Minnesota.

The 2013 award recipients:

• The Center for Population Health is resurrecting itself as a collaboration of local public health agencies, hospitals, and health systems. It receives $10,000 from Stratis Health to support a strategic planning process to define its new work scope. The Center aims to improve health in the Twin Cities metropolitan area by identifying unmet community needs, creating opportunities for collaboration, and facilitating alignment with state and federal priorities. With coordinated efforts and a targeted community-based approach, it will leverage each organization’s skills and resources to achieve the greatest impact. By making the best use of time and resources, duplication of efforts will be minimized for improvement planning, community health needs assessment, and data and information sharing.
• The University of Minnesota Center for Spirituality and Healing will use its $15,000 award to implement Integrative Therapies and Cancer Recovery projects to support patients recovering from cancer—a growing and historically underserved population. The projects will assist providers in creating supportive communities that help patients take charge of their post cancer health by integrating therapies and practices to sustain a longer, healthy life. Mindfulness based cancer recovery therapies focus on stress reduction and symptom management, such as dealing with anxiety, fatigue, insomnia, muscle loss, and weight gain or loss.

“Our board of directors sponsors the Building Healthier Communities award program to encourage creative community projects that support health care quality and patient safety,” said Jennifer Lundblad, PhD, MBA, president and CEO, Stratis Health. “To make lives better, Stratis Health aims to serve as a catalyst for collaboration and innovation in our community.”

Stratis Health is a nonprofit organization guided by an independent community-based board of directors. It is committed to being a responsible and engaged community member and gives these annual awards as part of its community commitment.

Stratis Health board or staff members submit nominations for the annual award. Programs that are nominated must align with Stratis Health's mission and vision, advance Stratis Health's work and relationships, focus on Minnesota, and benefit the community by making lives better.

At the end of the funded work, each recipient of the Building Healthier Communities award will submit a qualitative and quantitative report that shows how the project outcomes and goals were achieved.