Coalition Exhibit Featured at Conference on Community Benefit

On Tues, July 15, the St. Louis Diabetes Coalition accepted an invitation from the Saint Louis University School of Public Health to exhibit at a national conference on evidence-based community benefit. The conference, Making an Impact: Evidence-Based Community Benefit, introduced new public health evidence-based tools and knowledge to health care practitioners in order to enhance the effectiveness of community benefit programs and thus the overall health of communities. About 200 people from more than 30 states attended. The Coalition’s exhibit featured its educational programs as examples for health systems to consider as strategies. There is a movement afoot in non-profit health care (which most health systems are) to clearly document and demonstrate community benefit. Why? The IRS has changed the rules on how health systems must report what they do for the community to earns their non-tax-paying status.