About the North Carolina Healthcare Foundation

Make a contribution today. Help the North Carolina Healthcare Foundation make tangible improvements in the health of North Carolinians. Your donations help us convene changes that: 

• Help uninsured patients receive donated care, case management and other resources that support them to become healthier and avoid costly future healthcare procedures. 
• Assist rural and small hospitals to provide innovative programming that better serves its community and provide workforce training opportunities for healthcare professionals. 
• Create a diverse pipeline of healthcare leaders and better ensure these leaders are representative of the communities they serve. 
• Expand behavioral health resources and enhance reimbursement to provide a behavioral health system focused on quality and ease of care.
• Create new care models that provide widespread change for people across North Carolina’s hospitals and health systems that are consistent regardless of race or ethnicity. 

Your generous contribution supports the North Carolina Healthcare Foundation’s mission to foster and accelerate the collective impact of hospitals, health systems, and community partners to improve the health of North Carolinians. 

The North Carolina Healthcare Foundation is the charitable non-profit, innovative and programmatic arm of the North Carolina Healthcare Association. The Foundation is proactive, focusing on building and sustaining programs that make a measurable impact on health in the state. 

Across North Carolina, many people face challenges accessing quality, affordable care and opportunities for prevention close to home. The North Carolina Healthcare Foundation (NCHF) can help remove structural and financial barriers to care and improve overall health and well-being. We can do this through scalable initiatives and by facilitating a platform for peer learning and improvement. 

For instance, 

• AccessHealth of the Carolinas brings together 30 community-based networks of care to serve more than 80,000 uninsured patients across both Carolinas through access to donated care, case management and other resources. 

The Foundation uses its strength as a convener to facilitate a peer learning community of program leaders and partners, support performance improvement through one-on-one coaching and provide high-level technical insight to enhance data-driven decision-making and equitable health outcomes. 

• Healthy People, Healthy Carolinas (HPHC) is a community-driven health improvement initiative that has supported the development of nearly 20 cross-sector coalitions across North Carolina to address long-term systemic issues that contribute to poor health outcomes. HPHC also helps implement policy, systems and environmental changes for sustained impact. 

The Foundation provides technical assistance to HPHC initiative coalitions through one-on-one performance improvement coaching, collaborative learning sessions and the facilitation of a peer learning community.  

• CaroNova’s Home Hospital Early Adopters Accelerator (HHEAA) program led to the creation of more than 20 operational workflows and implementation tools for hospitals and health systems to advance current or launch new home hospital programs.  

Advocates from North Carolina and beyond took notice. This led to the passage of the Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act in December 2022, which included support for home hospital programs. North Carolina now has more home hospital programs than any other state. 

• The Foundation provided program evaluation support for UNC Health Southeastern’s U-Care Connections Patient Rides program, which provides patient transportation in Robeson County.  

Our evaluation led to the development of the U-Care Toolkit, designed to be a roadmap for other hospitals and health systems to create similar programs.  

We will actively contribute to shaping policy to drive health access improvement and systems change to support healthy communities. We will also identify and spread successful practices to improve access to care for all. 

Rural hospitals and health systems play a critical role in their communities. And their challenges differ from those of their counterparts in larger cities. By providing support, one-on-one performance improvement coaching and technical assistance for rural hospital quality and administrative leaders, the Foundation is driving improvements in quality, resiliency and workforce development. We aim to sustain and enhance rural hospitals’ ability to care for the patients they serve.  

• The Foundation leverages grant funds through the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program (FLEX) and the Small Rural Hospital Improvement Program (SHIP). These grants support more than 30 critical access and small and rural designated hospitals to develop innovative programming geared toward patient safety, equity, quality improvement and population health. 
• A key initiative is the Certified Professional Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) Certification and Professional Development Program focused on workforce training opportunities for quality professionals. 

Participants in the program have posted an 87% pass rate on their certification assessments.  

• Our work also helps rural hospitals close the gap on identified workforce challenges through the Rural Hospital Leadership and Workforce Development Grant.  

Up to eight hospitals will receive grants of as much as $50,000 to support the expansion of capabilities, the achievement of professional certifications and the pursuit of innovative solutions to advancing cultural competence, addressing workforce violence and improving staff resilience. 

• We strive to create stable rural health services that meet the changing needs of North Carolina’s rural communities and demonstrate value to the whole system of care.  

Our work to create Critical Access Hospital profiles enables rural hospitals to identify areas of opportunity within their community to drive population health improvement.  

Through this initiative, we are aggregating and utilizing a wide range of data to create unique profiles for each hospital that help identify and implement concrete actions to address population health needs.  

We strive to have a clear impact on social drivers of health, using those strategies of change to address other issues. 

Hospitals are facing significant workforce challenges. Through unique initiatives to recruit and train diverse leaders and support current employees, we are helping hospitals and health systems grow, develop and retain a robust healthcare workforce — and a thriving workforce pipeline —that views their work as mission critical and are committed to improving the lives of North Carolinians.  

Our accomplishments to date include: 

• Our Diverse Healthcare Leaders Mentorship program aims to create a diverse pipeline of healthcare leaders, address challenges in recruitment and promotion for executive-level positions and better ensure providers and leaders reflect the communities they serve.  
• Over three cohorts, we have graduated 36 mentees. 
• Fifty percent of last year’s graduates have been promoted or received new professional positions. 
• The NCHF developed and implemented the Certified Health Care Environmental Services Technician (CHEST) training and certification program to equip environmental service (EVS) leaders to train and certify EVS technicians on infection prevention and control practices. 
• To date, this program has developed 49 T-CHEST trainers and 161 certified EVS technicians. 

We hope to soon become the go-to source for innovative solutions to help recruit and retain a diverse, high-performing workforce, support and develop your existing workforce and create new models of care that enhance capabilities and reduce burnout.  

There are not enough behavioral health resources in North Carolina and across the country, and policymakers need guidance on how to effect positive change. Using our successes as guideposts, we can help policymakers shape and drive legislation to expand resources and improve reimbursement to create a standard of excellence for mental health treatment that parallels physical healthcare.  

• We developed and tested the Emergency Department (ED) Peer Support program, which awarded pilot funding for six hospitals to embed peer support specialists in their emergency departments. These specialists connect patients presenting with opioid overdose or substance use disorder to treatment and recovery resources. 
• As a result, total ED visits decreased by 40%, hospitalizations decreased by 56% and 30-day readmissions decreased by 34%.
• The Foundation drafted and supported the passage of SB630 to improve the way North Carolina treats patients in mental health crises who may need to be admitted to a healthcare facility for their safety or the safety of others (known as involuntary commitment). 
• This bill helped better define situations in which involuntary commitment might be needed, reducing its use and helping prevent unnecessary commitments.  
• CaroNova has partnered with the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS) to reform the state’s behavioral health system. 
• CaroNova led the creation of the South Carolina Behavioral Health Master Plan, outlining the pragmatic roadmap to achieve a comprehensive and effective system of care. 
• Through this work and CaroNova’s guidance, the state committed $35 million in infrastructure grant funding for South Carolina hospitals to increase access to crisis stabilization services across the state. 

We are actively spearheading policy that makes the Carolinas a leader in behavioral healthcare access. 

Healthcare quality and delivery vary widely across our state. Often those in disadvantaged or underrepresented groups experience worse health outcomes and lower levels of overall health. As a convener, connector and innovator, we build new care models that are creating widespread change for people across North Carolina. We provide comprehensive support services and programs to address social drivers of health across North Carolina. 

• The Foundation spearheaded the rollout of the NCHA Equity of Care Resolution, with 92% of members pledging their support and participation. The Resolution was the first step of a long-term commitment to tackling the systemic and enduring nature of health inequities in healthcare delivery in North Carolina. Today, members can access the Equity Dashboard through NCHA’s website to view the progress we’re making.
• The Foundation raised and distributed more than $5 million in COVID-19 Fill the Gap funding to local communities.
• We build new care models that are creating widespread change for people across North Carolina’s hospitals and health systems that are consistent regardless of race or ethnicity. 

Our work is positioning us as a leader in the fight for equity in the healthcare sector.