Cleveland hospitals team up with city on commitment to healthy living

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

CLEVELAND, Ohio — For the first time ever, the four CEOs of Cleveland's major health institutions came together to talk. They gathered around the large conference table in City Hall's Red Room on Thursday to discuss their far-ranging plans to make Cleveland healthier.

The Cleveland Clinic's Toby Cosgrove, University Hospitals' Tom Zenty, MetroHealth Medical Center's Mark Moran and Sisters of Charity Health System's Sister Judith Ann Karam, were all there to talk with Mayor Frank Jackson, Council President Martin Sweeney and Councilman Joe Cimperman to pledge their support for "Healthy Cleveland."

The effort, announced in February, is designed to spur Clevelanders to become healthier and more fit.

Council is scheduled to consider legislation in April to implement the plan. The new laws would include restrictions on where people can smoke; removal of sugar-based drinks and foods with trans fat from city-building vending machines; steps to create city gardens within walking distance of every resident, and the creation of joint-use agreements among community organizations, schools and city recreation facilities.

What hasn't been revealed yet is precisely what each hospital system will bring to the effort --financially, or specifically.

Cosgrove said after the meeting, "This is a great day. We are beginning to address an issue that is important to every aspect of life in Cleveland -- from health to financial. "The Cleveland Clinic will continue to do what we are doing, and to reach out to the community. We can change the city. For very little cost, we can make Cleveland look like a progressive city."

Sister Judith Ann noted the significance of the collaboration of the health care institutions. "The days of silos are behind us," she said. "This is something critical we need to collaborate on."

Moran spoke of the city and the institutions joining forces, "This is a big deal, to get government and healthcare to play together to make patients healthier."

Mayor Frank Jackson and Cosgrove first discussed the creation of such a citywide effort at a meeting in October, and Jackson made Councilman Joe Cimperman, who chairs and public health committee, his point person. "Everything starts with a first step," said Jackson. "Eventually, this plan will affect everyone, and just be part of the way we live in this city."

Zenty said that during the closed-door meeting the CEOs and city officials talked about the intent of the legislation, health goals for the city and how the institutions and the city could work together. Each hospital system will contribute some kind of expertise. "We'll be working together in a way we don't normally do -- we'll do what council and the mayor would have us do," he said.

Jackson said the city will reach out to businesses and the private sector for financial support and to get them involved as well. The mayor also noted that resistance from purveyors of sugary beverages or junk foods won't surprise him. "There will always be a pushback," he said. "We expect it and we'll work through it.
"There's always anxiety about change, but as time goes on and people adapt to new ways, the healthy way will become the normal way of life."

Cimperman called Thursday's meeting "base camp." "We've got to get acclimated to the oxygen level first," he said. "But with these four people, we have great guides."