Meeting the Need: The Launch of the Mission Projects Initiative
Not long back, Altarum Institute formally announced our new Mission Projects Initiative (“MPI”). The Mission Projects are a significant new endeavor for Altarum, one that is key to extending reach and impact beyond what we can do in client-funded work alone. With the Mission Projects Initiative, we are attempting to solve pressing health issues facing our nation, problems that now affect the quality of life of millions of Americans.
The Initiative starts with three projects – each to be conducted over the next two years. The first project seeks to facilitate community-level integration and coordination of community health and social services for veterans. The second project will work to determine systems changes that can reduce one of the greatest epidemics in our nation, childhood obesity. Our third Mission Project will drive innovation in community health centers (CHCs).
We are tackling these three issues because they represent significant health care challenges to our nation – and ones that are not being adequately addressed through current policies and programs. Sometimes solving such problems doesn’t fit squarely into a single agency’s jurisdiction – it literally “falls through the cracks.” Here, we can provide the leadership – convening the key players and beginning to define a collaborative response. Sometimes challenges such as these could benefit from a more integrated, more interdisciplinary, “systems” approach. Here, we can offer our technical expertise to construct high-leverage, sustainable solutions. Sometimes the need is primarily one of resources. Here, we can donate our talented staffs’ time and energy to begin to implement and evaluate workable strategies.
We see an opportunity – and an obligation. As a nonprofit, Altarum Institute is committed to its mission – we serve the public good by solving complex systems problems to improve human health. Taking on these three projects and devoting our own time and talent is what we believe being a nonprofit health systems research organization is all about. And this is no small endeavor. The Initiative will be a multimillion dollar effort, and we expect to devote at least $7 million to these three projects over the next two years alone. With success, we hope to continue the program, on new projects, well into the future.
What do we hope to achieve with the Mission Projects Initiative? First and foremost, we hope to make a positive impact on the lives of the individuals, families, and communities affected by our partner organizations. We won’t “solve” these enormous problems, and we would be naïve to think we could do so in only two years. However, we strive to conceive, implement, and test solutions that affect the structure and effectiveness of systems that support human health. We expect these projects to multiply their effects in two ways. First, we hope to create sustained change. While our projects will last only two years, we hope to develop systems improvements that will be sustained, in our partner organization – so, the improvements can impact lives for many years to come. Second, we hope to identify opportunities to replicate the successes to other settings, thereby scaling their impact significantly.
By actively sharing and communicating the lessons learned and the knowledge we gain in these two years of work, our time, effort, and dollars may be magnified many fold. I believe that each project will make its own “ripple,” creating models for systems-based change in health and health care.
Trying to catalyze the change we hope for is an enormous challenge. However, my colleagues are talented, accomplished, and most of all, passionate about this challenge. Altarum is well-positioned to try. With the Mission Projects Initiative, Altarum is demonstrating that we will not sit on the sidelines. We will do everything we can, even devoting our own financial and staff resources, to improve health and health care.
All postings to the Health Policy Forum (whether from employees or those outside the Institute) represent the views of the individual authors and/or organizations and do not necessarily represent the position, interests, strategy, or opinions of Altarum Institute. Read more.
Zack Cooper
Serena Vinter
Joanne Kenen