Commonwealth Fund Launches Multi-State Listening & Health Care Innovation Initiative with Grant to United States of Care

The State Health Innovation for Transformation (SHIFT) Initiative, will engage people in  Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Texas to identify opportunities for health care innovation and improvement

Washington, DC — Today, the Commonwealth Fund announced the launch of the State Health Innovation for Transformation (SHIFT) Initiative with its first grant to United States of Care (USofCare). This partnership will deploy USofCare’s unique listening approach and draw on both organizations’ extensive policy expertise to identify health care challenges and opportunities, and develop targeted solutions.

The Commonwealth Fund and USofCare will engage in research and public opinion listening tours engaging with community members, health care leaders, policymakers, and others in six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Texas. 

“The Commonwealth Fund has worked for decades to improve health and health care at the state level and we know that states face both unique and shared challenges when it comes to assuring their residents can get the health care they need,” said Commonwealth Fund President Joseph Betancourt, MD. “SHIFT will give us the opportunity to push beyond what data can tell us. We will start by hearing from people and communities about what matters most to them when it comes to health care. And then, we will engage health care leaders, policymakers, employers, and others to create a roadmap for how we get where patients and communities need us to go.”

“Listening to what people want from their health care, identifying the key barriers and needs, and building policy solutions rooted directly in those insights is exactly why United States of Care was created,”said Natalie Davis, CEO and Co-Founder of United States of Care. “Through listening to people across the United States, we’ve recently found that 71% of people say that health care costs are unaffordable. Through the SHIFT Initiative, we will use our expertise of engaging people and stakeholders to dive deeper to understand not only people’s worries about the cost of care, but their thoughts and feelings about the entire system. We will use that understanding to develop specific recommendations aimed at meeting each state’s unique needs. We’re proud to partner with Commonwealth Fund in this project and ready to continue exploring how we can make our health care system work better for people.”

SHIFT is one of two major Commonwealth Fund initiatives to address the future of the U.S. health care system and it represents the latest expansion of USofCare’s expanding state portfolio with listening and/or policy work in more than 18 states. 

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