2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

238 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
release of the first Wholeness Index, neighborhood indicators were used
to highlight the extent of the inequities in city and broaden support for
tackling the problem. Progressive DMN leaders helped keep the issue in
the public spotlight and tied it to specific calls for action. Philanthropic
groups and government agencies followed suit, increasingly using data
to target their work and measure their progress.
The Dallas case study shows the power of having a data and intermediary
organization like the Institute of Urban Policy and Research
to support forward-thinking government and community leaders. The
Dallas region’s journey from the mid 2000s to today illustrates how all
sectors can learn to use small-area data to advance the continuing agenda
for neighborhood improvement and social change.
Case Study: Improving Health Care Systems
in Camden, New Jersey
Our final case echoes some themes of the first two cases but also shows
how analysis of detailed data can support interventions at the neighborhood
and individual levels. Because of the strong legal protections of
HIPAA and because health system data are proprietary, few local data
intermediaries have small-area health data. Thanks to an entrepreneurial
doctor and progressive hospital leadership, the Camden community has
surmounted these difficulties and shown how local data can motivate
collaboration and inform action to improve the health of its residents.
For a relatively small place, Camden has an unusual set of health
resources: Three hospitals inside the city serve as anchor institutions
and strengthen civic leadership. For example, Virtua Health System was
a supporter in the 2001 creation of the NNIP partner organization Cam-
Connect. The year following the founding of CamConnect, primary care
providers began meeting informally to discuss their experiences in serving
Camden residents. Led by Dr. Jeffrey Brenner, they decided to formalize
their relationship by creating a nonprofit organization called the Camden
Coalition of Health Care Providers. Its mission was to build an integrated
health delivery model to provide better care for Camden residents. 20
Dr. Brenner, the organization’s executive director, understood the potential
for data to inform community problem solving and had already been
looking at hospitalization and crime data to identify patterns of violence in
the city (Gawande 2011). All three of the city’s hospitals (Cooper, Our Lady
of Lourdes, and Virtua) also wanted to understand their patients better and