Going Electronic in Health Care
Improving quality and reducing the cost of health care were the motivations for a community effort to convert to an electronic system for recordkeeping and health information exchange.
January 1, 2011
What We're Learning
Our Impact
The Greater Rochester Health Foundation is committed to the use of evaluation for the primary purpose of learning among the Foundation’s staff and board members, grantees, partners, communities, and fields. We strive for evaluation and learning practices that generate actionable insights, support continuous improvement, and uphold principles of equity.
Learning means that we are reflecting on our individual and organizational practices, systematically asking questions and analyzing information, and taking action to grown and improve. Learning helps us to achieve our goals by enabling us to:
- Better understand population health, policy, and equity issues
- Better understand communities’ perspectives, priorities, and preferred solutions
- Adapt our program and strategies in response to emerging insights and changing conditions
- Make informed, data-driven decisions
- Continually improve our practices to best support grantees, partners, and communities
Our Equity Journey
At the Greater Rochester Health Foundation, we have been on an intentional race-equity journey since 2016—supporting and participating in St. Joseph’s Neighborhood Center’s collective impact work on structural racism that evolved into the Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI) and now Interrupt Racism at the Urban League.
Through community convenings and staff discussions, we’ve sought to engage in deep learning and honest dialogue on institutional racism, implicit bias, microaggressions, and White privilege. Along with better understanding the consequences of structural racism for the health of our region, we are reckoning with how we have, at times, perpetuated it within our organization and our field – and we are taking corrective action to right these wrongs.
Through our participation in REJI, we have formed a “Change Team” that has been leading our internal equity work over the past few years, as well as an affinity group in which White staff are reflecting on the impact of White supremacy culture on our organizational norms, policies and practices, and acting on the responsibility to dismantle it.
When the Black Agenda Group (BAG) launched the “Racism as a Public Health Crisis” declaration in May of 2020, it codified —in a series of profound statements— all the work we have been doing internally and provided another opportunity to express our values. As the BAG has emphasized, we recognize that this crisis demands more than statements and transactions—it demands sustained, transformative action.
Over the past few years we’ve focused on diversifying our team to ensure a strong mix of experience —both lived and professional— as well as representation from the many communities we serve. We have been reviewing and changing policies and practices to become a more equitable and inclusive organization. Additionally, we are building Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) competencies into performance evaluation and professional growth plans, such as one staff member’s pursuit of a Diversity Professional Certification.
At the Health Foundation, we are committed to centering racial and health equity across all our operations — and we invite community to help hold us accountable to this work. In addition to our internal efforts, this includes:
- Working with partners to disrupt the systems and conditions that result in racial and other health inequities across our region, including providing funding for equity-focused advocacy efforts in the region.
- Prioritizing funding to benefit groups and communities historically marginalized and most impacted by health inequities, and centering community voice and leadership in developing and implementing solutions.
- Striving for grantmaking in which the diverse people, communities, and nonprofits of our region are equitably represented, including strategies that support organizations led by Black, Latino/x, and other People of Color—organizations that have been systematically underfunded in philanthropy.
In furthering anti-racist efforts within our own organization and our partners’, we strengthen our region as a whole.
Listening to Our Grantees: Grantee Perception Report
Partnership is a core value of the Health Foundation—we believe our partnerships are our most valuable resource for advancing our mission of building a healthier region where all people can thrive. We are committed to listening and learning from our partners as we strive to be more than a funder, but an amplifier, a multiplier, and a connector.
In the Spring of 2023, we engaged the Center for Effective Philanthropy to conduct the field-leading Grantee Perception Report (GPR) for comprehensive feedback from our grantee partners. This is the second time we’ve fielded the GPR, offering insight into progress since our first survey in 2020. Results benchmark our performance relative to all foundations with GPR data as well as a sample of a dozen foundations most similar to ours. As we share these findings with you (access the key findings and full report at the below buttons), we want you to know that we are committed to listening and learning from your feedback as we strive to be more than a funder, but a thought partner, amplifier, and connector.
We are grateful to our many partners who took the time to respond to the survey.
Read more about actions we’re taking in response to grantee feedback here.
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Reports & Presentations
Impact Stories
Our Impact Stories series is designed to share more about the work of our grantee partners—from idea, to implementation, to impact. Impact Stories begin with the recognition that dismantling the social and systemic inequities that drive health outcomes is collective and connected work.
The series explores connections across partners and efforts supported by Health Foundation grants, including common issue spaces, fields and strategies. While sharing background information around the issues and inequities that we and our community partners are working to address, the focus will be on uplifting the approaches they are taking and innovations they are making to advance health equity, and what they are learning along the way. We’ll explore the difference the work is making, wherever possible from the lens of participants and communities engaged, and with consideration of practice- and community-based evidence as much as research or evaluation findings.
Impact Stories are one of many ways in which we will continue to share stories, results and learnings from the work that the Health Foundation is doing and resourcing.
Our first Impact Story, Telehealth: New Developments, Grantee Spotlights & Provider Perspectives, published in December, 2023, takes a look at telehealth within behavioral health care and prevention, sharing provider perspectives from qualitative data along with the work of grantee partners Catholic Charities Family and Community Services, Dr. Michael Hasselberg and the University of Rochester, UConnectCare and the Genesee-Orleans-Wyoming Opioid Task Force, that have been implementing and innovating in this space. Beyond telehealth, these efforts offer compelling examples of how our partners —over time and powered by persistence and collaboration— translated bold, forward-thinking ideas into new service models and initiatives with impact at scale.
Click the button below to open the Impact Story, Telehealth: New Developments, Grantee Spotlights & Provider Perspectives:
Reports & Presentations
Health Care Delivery
The Process Prescription
The Process Prescription How the Business Community is helping local health care providers to improve efficiency, 2011
January 1, 2011
Neighborhood Health Status Improvement
SOAR: Strengthening Our Area Residents 2017
The residents of the Town of Galen, the Town of Savannah and the Village of Clyde are working to implement a grassroots, community-driven plan to create new opportunities for health improvement.
December 23, 2017
Neighborhood Health Status Initiative – Information Sessions
Barbara Zappia, MPA, Greater Rochester Health Foundation: Deborah Puntenney, Ph.D. Northwestern University, ABCD Institute; Lauren Snyder, RN, MPA, Our Town Rocks Project, S2AY Rural Health Network, January 2013
January 23, 2013
Project HOPE
Helping people lead with their strengths: the new way forward for a healthier neighborhood, 2011
July 1, 2011
Our Town Rocks
Bringing country neighbors together for good: A rural area built on its strengths and inspires healthy action, 2011
June 1, 2011
Asset Based Community Development
Asset Based Community Development, Deborah Puntenney, Ph.D. Northwestern University, ABCD Institute, March, 2011
March 23, 2011
January 1, 2008
Children’s Social and Emotional Health
Early Care Scan Report
Early childhood development is critical for later positive developmental, social, physical
health, and mental health outcomes (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2007).
January 10, 2019
Raising Resilience Summit
On January 9, 2018, the Implementation Task Force hosted the Raising Resilience Summit at St. John Fisher College. The Summit brought together leaders from multiple professional disciplines to advance a comprehensive approach to promoting the social and emotional health of children and their families, and to plan and build cross-sector prevention actions. Materials from the Raising Resilience Summit are available on the Finger Lakes ACEs Connection website. The Finger Lakes ACEs Connection promotes a collaborative approach to raise awareness of adverse childhood experiences and drive sustainable systems change to impact community resiliency. We invite you to become members of this free online resource and post, share, learn and connect.
January 23, 2018
Taking Action: Building Resilience
In late 2017, the Implementation Task Force started its efforts to help organizations become more trauma informed. Task Force members shared the “Taking Action: Building Resilience” presentation to encourage groups and organizations to become more trauma responsive through organizational self-assessments, training in trauma informed care and cultural humility, training in youth mental health first aid, and participation in school-based initiatives such as the Trauma, Illness and Grief Consortium.
December 23, 2017
Strategic Plan for the Prevention of Childhood Overweight and Obesity
Strategic Plan for the Prevention of Childhood Overweight and Obesity in Monroe County NY 2007-2017
July 22, 2017
Crisis in Care
In 2016, the Greater Rochester Health Foundation’s Commission on Children’s Behavioral Health in the Finger Lakes presented a report that identified gaps in behavioral health care for our region’s children. More than 150 community and health care leaders joined together to discuss the challenges facing our region’s children and how we can work together to make a difference. Read the compelling report: Crisis in Care.
January 1, 2016
December 24, 2010
December 24, 2007
Additional Info
August 1, 2022
July 28, 2022
August 24, 2012
December 24, 2011
Results Studies
As our grantees wrap up the work on their programs, we work with independent and objective outside evaluators to assess and determine each initiative’s impact. The Evaluation Reports are honest looks back at each program, documenting process results and outcomes and sharing lessons learned.
Post-Acute Cardiac Rehabilitation Program to Reduce Hospital Re-admissions
Launched in 2013, this innovative program was designed to help cardiac patients achieve success with their post-acute treatment regime, something that is especially important for older cardiac patients who are at an increased risk for complications.
September 22, 2015
Evaluation Report – Remote Simultaneous Medical Interpretation
In 2011, as a result of the growing refugee population, an innovative project launched to improve the quality of language interpretation services in healthcare facilities.
September 10, 2015
Evaluation Report – Program to Encourage Active and Rewarding Lives for Seniors (PEARLS)
This 2010 project supported the work of senior-serving agencies in Monroe County to better identify and treat depression among older adults.
February 1, 2014
Evaluation Report – Program to Reduce Depression Among High-Risk Patients
A program was funded in 2010 to improve the identification and treatment of patients at risk for depression at two community health centers.
July 20, 2013