The "Backyard" is the approximately one square mile area surrounding Allina Commons, Abbott Northwestern Hospital and the Phillips Eye Institute. Communities in the Backyard include Phillips and parts of the Central, Powderhorn Park and Corcoran neighborhoods of Minneapolis.
Nearly half of Allina Hospitals & Clinics' 23,000 employees work in the Backyard. Residents of the Backyard represent one of the most diverse communities in the state of Minnesota—approximately 32 percent are white, 26 percent are black, and 22 percent are Hispanic. About one-f ourth of the community is foreign born. It is a highly mobile population, with 64 percent of residents moving between 1995 and 2000. While high school graduation rates are comparable to Minnesota as a whole, unemployment is twice the state rate (9.8 percent compared to 4.3 percent) and almost 44 percent of the community is low income.
Community members face multiple additional challenges, including numerous health issues (e.g., higher rates of asthma and obesity and lower rates of health insurance than the state average) and limited coordination among community assets. While Allina, Abbott Northwestern and Phillips Eye Institute have had a long-standing commitment to improving the Backyard, efforts need to be more coordinated and comprehensive to effect long-term, meaningful change for community residents.
Despite these challenges, the Backyard community and its partner social institutions are poised to come together in the creation of new collaborations and new approaches that can improve the health and larger social determinants of residents.
The Backyard community has numerous assets — strong organizations and coalitions, committed government and health care partners, and a growing sense of shared investment among a broad group of stakeholders in improving the health, as well as the social and economic outcomes, of the community's residents.
The Backyard Initiative intends to galvanize a coalition of community-based, government, education and healthcare organizations towards improving the health and healthcare of residents of the Backyard.
Allina Hospitals & Clinics is willing to invest new resources and to serve as a coordinating facilitator in organizing its own business units, as well as numerous community and government assets, to improve health outcomes of Backyard residents.
Our intention is to create models for community improvement that can be spread to other backyards, both in the communities Allina serves, but also statewide and nationally.
To improve the health outcomes and health care access and utilization of Backyard residents, we propose building and enabling a coordinated team of social institutions in the community—including community-based organizations, government, health care, and education.
We propose that the collaborative efforts of significant community partners acting in tandem can far surpass the individual efforts of one organization. We expect the coalition to focus its efforts on a limited number of large projects supported by all member organizations, complemented by a larger array of smaller projects supported by smaller workgroups of selected organizations. We aim to engage key stakeholders (both organizations and individuals) in a process of inquiry and collaborative creation to implement key initiatives in the Backyard.
Our vision is to measurably improve the health of Backyard residents by increasing individual and family protective factors through targeted comprehensive programming and by coordinating and leveraging institutional and community assets.
Specific areas of focus, outcome measures and concrete strategies will be determined through a needs assessment and broad stakeholder engagement. Our aim is to determine where we can have more impact working together, across social and community institutions, than when we work alone.
Our approach involves creating a coalition of state and local government, community-based organizations and clinics, public and private schools, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and Allina Hospitals & Clinics. An assessment of the current status (including social, economic and health) of the Backyard community has been completed and reviewed by potential collaborative members.
A key stakeholder meeting convened in May 2008 yielded a number of potential areas for focus. These include:
Coalition members will be expected to participate in a limited number of large (key) projects, as well as to consider supporting smaller initiatives, where appropriate and fitting.
The Center for Healthcare Innovation will invest $146,688 in the Backyard Initiative for the remainder of 2008 so that the coalition can continue its conversation and refine the collaborative's goals and intent, build a workplan for specific execution of larger and smaller projects, and engage local and national experts in developing the specific activities within each of the key focus areas.
Start and end dates |
Description of work |
| June 2008 | Develop job description for project management position. Develop brief job description and specific deliverables for research assistant. Present Backyard Project overview to board, including request for funding and approval for hiring. Post project management opening. Finalize arrangements for research assistant. Convene Backyard Project Internal Planning Team (with additional members)
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| July 2008 | Hire project management for Backyard Project. Contract with consultant as needed to support project management. Identify research assistant. Review and critically assess community health improvement literature. Review and critically assess local, national and internal resources on effective models for health improvement partnerships. Visit with and learn about functioning of Phillips Partnership and Midtown Community Works. Convene Backyard Project Internal Planning Team. Begin relationship-building visits with all May 5 meeting attendees, including individuals/organizations identified for future participation. Understand nature of organization, specific roles and projects. Understand extent of interest in Backyard Project. Solicit feedback from national experts about approach, possible interventions and projects. Convene Executive Steering Committee to discuss lessons from literature, neighborhood organizations Convene executive steering committee to prepare for mid-summer workshop. |
| August 2008 | Complete review and assessment of community health improvement literature. Complete review and assessment of local, national and internal resources on effective models for health improvement partnerships. Complete relationship-building visits. Compile feedback from national experts. Identify and summarize specific projects/intervention ideas that have been generated through the inquiry process. Recruit Backyard Project coalition executive committee (to include current members of Backyard Initiative Executive Advisory Committee). Contract with consultant as needed to support project management. |
| Late August to September 2008 | Convene executive committee. Revise and finalize the Backyard Project's initial mission, goals, structure and desired outcomes based upon summer assessment work and feedback. Actively recruit coalition members. Host workshop to discuss approach, membership, structure. Contract with consultant as needed to support project management. Develop workplan and September Board meeting presentation. |
| Late September to October 2008 | Host workshop to discuss activities. Refine workplan for implementation. |
| November 2008 | Launch Backyard Project coalition and activities. |
Start and end dates |
Description of work |
| January 2009 to December 2011 | Implement Backyard Project activities. Study and understand implementation process, successes and challenges of collaborative. |
Start and end dates |
Description of work |
| June 2009 to December 2011 | Study and understand implementation process, successes and challenges of collaborative. Measure impact of Project activities. Monitor community surveillance data to understand health and other outcomes and impacts. |