Community Benefit

Dear Friends –

Thank you for being a part of the CHI Health community. The heart of our mission is to serve, help our neighbors and heal our communities. We can not fulfill that mission without you. This requires us to work beyond the walls of our clinics and hospitals - into the streets where people live, work, learn and worship. I am delighted to share with you how we have supported health and healing with our neighbors and in our communities over the past year.

At no other point in our 151-year history serving Nebraska and Southwest Iowa have our communities needed humankindness more. We answered the call and continued to respond. In fiscal year 2021, CHI Health provided $208.7 million in community benefit and served nearly 400,000 patients through Medicaid or financial assistance, the largest investment in our organization’s history.

Extraordinarily trying times require extraordinary humankindness.

I am incredibly proud of our CHI Health staff that continued to serve our communities with humankindness throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Collectively, we administered nearly 80,000 vaccines, performed over 92,000 tests and cared for 10,932 patients with COVID-19. We hosted virtual town halls, distributed hand sanitizers and masks to local congregations and provided resources for coping through these unprecedented times. Our 717- HOPE information and referral line received 40,551 calls, averaging 922 calls for mental health and substance misuse treatment services weekly.

Knowing many of our neighbors were hurting in ways not easily remedied by a single office visit or prescription; our system reached out to provide health and social care to those who needed it most. Many of our neighbors needed to put food on the table and a safe place to rest their head at night and that is why nearly 70% of our investments in community health across Nebraska and Southwest Iowa addressed the social determinants of health. Throughout this report, we’ve shared examples of the kinds of support we provided, such as:

• Healthy foods to promote optimal health and prevent chronic disease through support of farmer’s markets, community gardens and scaling nutrition assistance programs for low-income individuals and families via fresh fruit and vegetable vouchers.
• Safe and accessible housing through investments in construction of new homes in East Omaha, the launch of a health and housing coalition, a pilot program to provide housing case management services for our chronically homeless patients and Community Response programs in Grand Island, Kearney and Nebraska City.
• Workforce development through paid internships for youth and case management services for refugees to successfully integrate into society and find gainful employment.

It has been a uniquely difficult year for so many. We are blessed with caregivers who continue to step up, no matter the challenge, to make sure our patients, families, colleagues and communities are well served. I hope you will take a few minutes to read this report. It is a reflection of the humankindness that is CHI Health.

Sincerely,
Jeanette Wojtalewicz, MHA
Interim President & CEO
CHI Health

Download the CHI Health Community Benefit Report 2021 (PDF)

Download the CHI Health Community Benefit Report 2020 (PDF)

Download the CHI Health Community Benefit Report 2019 (PDF)

Download the CHI Health Community Benefit Report 2018 (PDF)

Download the CHI Health Community Benefit Report 2017 (PDF)

Download the CHI Health Community Benefit Report 2016 (PDF)