Growth in a Season of Change
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2023 was a pivotal year of transition for HealthierHere.
We wrapped up the Medicaid Transformation Project (MTP) 1.0, welcomed new staff and board members, fostered new efforts, and together envisioned the next chapter of our non-profit collaborative.
Guided by our community and partners, we’ve laid the groundwork for a connected ecosystem of whole-person care. Our north star: every person in King County leads a healthy, thriving life.
Join us in looking back on 2023 and setting our sights on the bright future ahead.
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Deepening Impact
In 2023, HealthierHere activated our network of partners to find new ways to transform our health and social services systems to better serve - and make a tangible difference in the lives of our communities.
Over 6,000,000
People reached through partnerships, initiatives, events and services
$20.7 Million
Invested in local organizations and providers with a focus on impact, equity and sustainability
50+ Convenings held
Bringing together leaders from across sectors to share learnings and co-design solutions
“HealthierHere has deepened our roots. The fact that they were so open and willing to learn what's needed by the people – not saying ‘Hey, here's some money and what we want you to do.’ It's more like, ‘How can we be of service?’ That gave us strong roots, and this tree is growing. It’s all part of the tree of our community’s health.”
Cultivating Connection
Fostering cross-sector collaborations to improve health outcomes and reduce inequities is central to our model for change. This year, we bridged silos and strengthened systems of care through innovative partnerships, programs, and technology.
Photo by Rachael Green.
Scaling and Sustaining Innovation
18 Community, Clinical, and Tribal partners
developed innovative efforts rooted in partnership to improve the delivery of care and address health disparities in their communities. They created , toolkits, or modules to help other organizations learn from or adopt promising practices.
“The most valuable thing we achieved as a result of this project was the increased capacity to collaborate with multiple providers and offer a more holistic range of resources to our community members. Without this funding, we would not have had capacity to work closely with Fresh Start Professional Services on serving the formerly incarcerated/reentry community together in a way that leveraged our respective strengths.”
Health Literacy Project
This partnership between HealthierHere and Public Health - Seattle & King County advanced organizational health literacy strategies. This work ensured that communities disproportionately impacted by health disparities were effectively reached with culturally and linguistically responsive public health messaging about COVID-19 mitigation.
International Community Health Services’ COVID Vaccine Boost Campaign generated 4.35 million impressions via social media, digital, outdoor, and community media.
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Culturally Responsive and Inclusive Health Care
With funding from the City of Seattle’s Human Services Department, HealthierHere supported three Federally Qualified Health Centers to partner with a community-based organization (CBO), Tribal health care organization, Native-led/serving CBO, or a behavioral health agency. Together, they developed innovative, wholistic health and well-being services to address health disparities experienced by Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), refugee and immigrant community members.
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Care Connect Washington
The debut program of the HealthierHere Community Hub, Care Connect Washington, a partnership with the Washington State Department of Health, helped mitigate the health, social, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Together with our contracted care coordination agencies, we offered life-saving support and care coordination services to people across King County.
3,875 people served with support for...
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Shared Care Planning
We brought together primary care (HealthPoint), behavioral health care (Valley Cities), and emergency care (Valley Medical Center) organizations to improve care coordination for clients who are high Emergency Department Users and have behavioral health needs and chronic conditions. Partners developed collaborative processes and leveraged shared technology and data, aiming to foster long-term sustainability.
“The interdependencies across organizations demand working together to break down complex patient care needs. This means working across systems rather than within them.”
Washington Integrated Care Assessment
HealthierHere helped lead the creation of a statewide standardized assessment for clinical integration for outpatient primary care and behavioral health clinics, paving the way for clinical practices to improve whole-person care. Learn more about the assessment results.
126 Behavioral Health sites & 79 Primary Care sites identified unique and shared
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to successfully integrate care
Community Information Exchange
25+ Community, Clinical, & Tribal Partners
came together in 2023 to co-design technology, policies, data standards, share resources, and more via workgroups and an advisory group. Together, this work will support sharing information across systems to improve care coordination and better connect communities to health and social services.
Strengthening Roots
We looked within our organization to evaluate and bolster the foundations that are central to our success and help us live fully into our values.
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Designing a Thriving Culture
HealthierHere embarked on a year-long journey to develop an organizational culture where every staff member can grow and thrive. We examined ways to actively weave anti-racism into the fabric of our work.
Putting Equity into Action
We say it all the time: lead with equity. HealthierHere surveyed all of our staff, board members, and a wide array of partners and stakeholders to assess our efforts and chart paths for continual improvement in fulfilling the principles in our Equity Definitions and Guidelines.
Wrestling with the Truth of Colonization
As part of our commitment to Tribal health and sovereignty, HealthierHere’s staff and board members participated in this training focused on the effects of colonization that contribute to disparities experienced by Native and Indigenous communities today.
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Planting Seeds for the Future
We began the exciting work of creating a robust care coordination system to serve people across King County and Washington State.
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Building Toward a New Chapter
2023 marked the culmination of the Medicaid Transformation Project 1.0. This national and statewide initiative has been the bedrock of HealthierHere’s efforts since our organization was founded in 2017. We were thrilled that MTP 2.0 was approved, kick-starting a year of planning to shape the next five years and beyond for our collective.
Coalition of Accountable Communities of Health
HealthierHere is proud to serve as the Accountable Community of Health (ACH) for King County. In 2023, Washington State’s nine ACHs formed a new coalition to learn from our unique regional experiences and leverage our collective strengths heading into MTP 2.0.
Vision for 2024
We believe every person in King County should have an equitable and just opportunity to live a healthy, thriving life – receiving the care and support they need with respect and without stigma.
To make this happen, we will work in 2024 to:
Launch the HealthierHere Community Hub
Deliver services to address Health-Related Social Needs
Align, strengthen, and grow our Community Care Network
Build capacity in Community Organizations
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John Kim
Letter from our CEO
When I joined HealthierHere as the new CEO in June 2023, I knew I was in for an adventure. Through all of the transitions we navigated last year, I’ve been blown away by the daily dedication and resilience of this organization. Our strength is firmly rooted in the collective. I’m deeply grateful to our staff, board members, partners, and community for leaning in and doubling down, even in the face of uncertainty and change. You’ve shown what a shared commitment to centering community voice and embedding equity in our processes and outcomes can yield in just a short amount of time. We’re energized coming out of 2023 with a renewed sense of purpose of who we are and why we’re stronger together. Thank you for walking with us on the path to health equity. I can’t wait to see what we will continue to achieve together.
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