HRiA is developing and facilitating a planning process for the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals that will establish the Boston CHNA (community health needs assessment) and CHIP (community health improvement plan) Collaborative. This planning process will lay the foundation to conduct a joint citywide CHNA in 2019 and develop a joint CHIP for all of Boston. Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals (COBTH) is a coalition of thirteen Boston-area teaching hospitals, and additional stakeholders engaged in the planning process include the Boston Alliance for Community Health, Boston Public Health Commission, Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, and Metropolitan Area Planning Council.

In 2016, COBTH hospitals agreed to collaborate on primary data collection and to share those data among the hospitals for their respective CHNAs. For 2019, rather than independently conducting their own tri-annual CHNAs, COBTH intends to conduct a single CHNA and develop a joint CHIP for all of Boston in partnership with other key stakeholders. To support these efforts, HRiA is employing a variety of strategies to foster collaboration and integrate the perspectives of hospitals, community health centers, and other healthcare stakeholders. In 2017, HRiA facilitated planning meetings with the COBTH Community Benefits Committee to design and develop key elements of the CHNA and CHIP Collaborative, including: (1) the scope of the collaborative; (2) need for stakeholder representation; (3) roles and relationships among collaborative partners; (4) a governance structure that includes processes for decision-making, membership, and accountability; (5) organizational structure for the collaborative, and (6) a funding plan that addresses contribution levels and fiscal sponsorship. HRiA will use the outputs of these discussions to create a strategic organizational plan for the Collaborative. In addition to conducting a joint CHNA and CHIP, the establishment of this Collaborative will result in data sharing across institutions, alignment of resources and services across the Boston, and implementation of initiatives that focus on low-income populations.