NYHealth’s 2020 Progress Report

Progress

• Testified before New York State and City legislators regarding food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. An NYHealth analysis of survey data informed the testimony.
• Submitted public comments to inform and influence: 1) equitable efforts to roll out COVID-19 vaccines; and 2) proposed federal rules to require private health insurers to make price information available to patients prior to when care is delivered.
• Continued our campaign to create universal access to Veterans Treatment Courts (VTC), which gained momentum early in 2020. Bills were introduced in both houses of the State legislature and gained co-sponsors, but the effort stalled given the abbreviated legislative session during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Progress

• Committed $5 million in funding to support COVID-19 response and relief efforts throughout New York State.
• Increased NYHealth’s typical annual grantmaking budget to address immediate and ongoing needs for relief, recovery, and resiliency support among New York State organizations. Grants included contributions to numerous regional response funds, as well as support for statewide and local efforts to address emerging health care and public health needs in the wake of the pandemic.
• Focused on New Yorkers hit hardest by the pandemic, including frontline health care workers, families who lack food security, isolated older adults, veterans, immigrants, and uninsured New Yorkers.

Progress

• Racial justice issues were prominent throughout the nation in 2020, and for NYHealth as well. Health equity has always been an underlying theme of much of NYHealth’s work, but it has not been an explicit focus. In 2020, we re-examined our approach to health equity, particularly through the lens of racial inequities.
• All staff received implicit bias training. A follow-up training session on bias mitigation will occur in early 2021.
• Used Juneteenth as a day for all staff to engage in learning and action on racial equity issues.
• Revamped communications related to racial heath equity, including a new page on the NYHealth website describing how our work promotes racial health equity for New Yorkers and identifying gaps to inform future work.
• NYHealth’s Patients as Partners: Advancing Equity Request for Proposals (RFP) was framed specifically to advance racial health equity. This RFP seeks projects that will amplify voices of patients of color to ensure their priorities, preferences, and experiences guide efforts to create a more equitable health care system.
• Reviewed and modified internal practices and policies to align with equity goals.

Progress

• Convened virtual peer learning sessions where communities shared ideas and best practices on a range of topics, including community engagement during the pandemic.
• Supported grantees to implement creative ways to help their communities address food insecurity, maintain contact with isolated residents, and plan for socially distanced activities during the pandemic.
• Partnered with the program’s evaluation team from New York University School of Medicine to understand if organizational capacity fostered by the Building Healthy Community efforts over time helped communities respond to COVID-19.

Progress

• COVID-19 delayed some, but not all, park improvements. In Clinton County, for example, where rates of COVID-19 remained low, work continued on the development of new trails and recreation parks funded by NYHealth.
• Given limitations for congregating in large groups and closures of many public spaces during the pandemic, grantees found alternative ways to promote physical activity. For example, Missio Church in the Near Westside of Syracuse created take-home after-school activities to help children stay active while sheltering in place, and the Create a Healthier Niagara Falls Collaborative adapted its “Walk the Falls” event to accommodate social distancing.

Progress

• In every region where the Building Healthy Communities program operates, community organizations have begun to organize, develop, and fundraise for their own regional food plans.
• NYHealth successfully rallied matching funds from other funders, enabling Field and Fork Network to be awarded $1.5 million by the USDA for a large-scale Double-Up Food Bucks expansion.
• Because of the success of NYHealth grantee Community Food Advocates to ensure that all 1.1 million New York City public school children have universal free lunch, these children are all eligible for Pandemic-EBT, a federal program that gives each child up to $420 in food benefits in lieu of lunches they would have received while attending school.

Progress

• With NYHealth support, the 32BJ Health Fund launched its 32BJ Maternity Program in five New York City hospitals to help empower women to make informed decisions about where to deliver their child, based on the quality and cost standards of care.
• A cohort of NYHealth-supported organizations started implementing OpenNotes in their community health centers to make doctors’ clinic notes accessible and actionable for patients.
• Supporting the development of the first-ever Consumer Empowerment Scorecard to assess the status of consumer-focused policies and practices in New York State, including transparency tools and policies to support patient voices.

Progress

• Partnered with New York Academy of Family Physicians (NYSAFP), the New York Chapter of the American College of Physicians (NYACP), and Avalere to test and scale approaches to improve physician-patient cost conversations in 23 primary care practices throughout New York State.
• With NYHealth support, the Institute for Patient and Family-Centered Care (IPFCC) launched an educational program to improve communication between providers and patient caregivers in medical settings.
• NYHealth grantee Medicare Rights Center (MRC) used individualized support and Medicare Advocacy Toolkits to help hundreds of consumers with issues such as enrolling in Medicare and obtaining prescription drug coverage.

Progress

• NYHealth grantees had made it a priority to add more consumer representatives to the New York State Public Health and Health Planning Council. In 2020, both houses of the New York State Legislature passed a bill adding two consumer seats to the council.
• Health Care for All New York (HCFANY) provided education on and advocated for medical bill simplification and expanded consumer protections. In 2020, both the Assembly and the Senate introduced legislation that would protect New Yorkers from unfair medical bills.

Progress

• Organized and/or participated in numerous NYHealth events related to veterans’ issues. These included hosting (1) a webinar with the Director of New York State’s Division of Veterans’ Serviceson connecting veterans with resources during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) a two-part virtual conference focused on preventing veteran suicide.
• Authored pieces that addressed issues including trauma, resilience, and mental health in the veteran community for outlets including The New York Times and Albany Times Union.
• Participated in and provided guidance to the Governors’ Challenge to Prevent Suicide, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs, New York State’s Division of Veterans’ Services, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Progress

• Created a portfolio of work to connect veterans to community-based resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. Issues addressed in this work included preventing veteran suicide; addressing food insecurity and social isolation; and providing legal aid and housing services in conjunction with organizations such as Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, The Mission Continues, and the New York City Veterans Alliance.

Progress

• In 2020, our Special Projects Fund (SPF) received 277 letters of inquiry
  • Nearly half were from new applicants not previously funded by NYHealth.
• SPF grants addressed a variety of topics, including policies to grow primary care investment in New York State, access to peer to peer mental health services for health providers, and alternative approaches to geriatric addiction treatment.

Progress

• Canceled a planned second Request for Proposals for SPF grants in 2020 and converted the remaining grants budget into a COVID-19 Response Fund.
• Created and repurposed a social media surveillance system designed to help New York’s public health officials, health care systems, and providers to counter disinformation initiatives nationally and in New York State about the COVID-19 vaccine and other health issues.

Progress

• Produced analyses on pressing issues, including:
  • The extent of food insecurity experienced by New Yorkers throughout the pandemic.
  • The implications of the flu season during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the need for additional efforts to improve flu vaccine uptake.
  • Disparities in severe maternal morbidity trends by race and ethnicity throughout New York State.
  • Population projections by county for New York State and the health care implications of changing demographics by race/ethnicity and age group.
• Published blog posts on different approaches to health reform and how philanthropic organizations can use research to inform and enhance their grantmaking.

Progress

Publishing 

• Published 14 reports and 12 commentaries, in addition to 13 grant outcome reports.
• Published 4 op-eds and letters to the editor.

Traditional Media

• Received 104 media hits.

E-mail/Social Media

• Maintained more than 14,000 contacts on our e-mail lists.
  • Averaged 22% open rate for email blasts (industry standard is 16%).
• More than 6,900 Twitter followers.

Convening

• Held 31 convenings; highlights include:
  • A new “Practically Speaking” webinar series focused on practical tips for adapting during the pandemic. Nearly 1,000 people attended one of the 16 sessions.
  • NYHealth’s first online conference, a two-part series focused on veteran suicide.

Website

• Continued to refine the website to support publications that are less text-heavy, more digestible, and more shareable and interactive.
• Continued to experiment with dynamic infographics on website and social media to increase engagement.

Progress

• As of December 31, 2020, the 3-year compound annual return on endowment investments was 8.4%, net of fees.
• Investment performance relative to peers for the 3-year period ending September 30, 2020 (latest comparison available) ranked in 96th percentile.¹
• Maintained return of 7.1% since inception (July 2006).
• When compared with the benchmark of 5% plus CPI (Consumer Price Index) since inception, NYHealth was 0.3% above the benchmark.

¹ Peer data is based on a survey conducted by Cambridge Associates; “Peers” are defined as foundations with less than $500 million in assets. There are currently 60 foundations contributing such data.

Progress

• For 2020, NYHealth was certified with another clean audit.
• The average rating by grantees of NYHealth staff members responsiveness was of 6.1 (out of a 7-point scale), placing NYHealth highly relative to peer foundations.²
• In 2020, all grantees received their initial payment within an average of 11 days of receiving an award notice.

² Based on the 2019 Center for Effective Philanthropy Grantee Perception Survey.