A Grand Junction-based organization has launched a service designed to promote collaboration in addressing the various issues that affect health.

Quality Health Network (QHN) launched Collaborise, a service to help organizations and communities work together to address social determinants of health (SDOH), including employment and education as well as access to food, housing and transportation.

QHN was established in 2004 to help health care providers exchange information and coordinate care.

QHN subsequently started the Community Resource Network, a community information exchange about people and their unique needs, available resources to meet those needs and agencies and organization that provide help.

By one estimate, employment and education as well as access to food, housing and transportation can account for up to 80 percent of the factors affecting health. Addressing social determinants can in turn improve well-being as well as lower health care costs.

“As communities across Colorado and nationally work to tackle housing, food insecurity, social isolation and other SDOH issues, we have the expertise to help them get on a path to success,” said Marc Lassaux, executive director and chief executive officer of Quality Health Network.

“QHN has 20 years of success due to our strengths communicating, collaborating and working together with our community partners,” Lassaux said. “These strengths jump started QHN’s Community Resource Network, our social information exchange, in the summer of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. Now, with the addition of Collaborise, we will be able to share our strengths with other communities and organizations.”

Collaborise offers a process in which to convene an array of stakeholders to address what can be complex challenges. Coaches are available to help in meeting a simple need or overhaul strategies for an organization or community.

Collaborise is helping communities in Western Colorado identify resources and solutions to improve a mother’s access to behavioral health services through a grant-funded project started earlier in 2023.

“When there’s a need for improvement or solutions, oftentimes it’s critical to peel back all the layers to successfully move forward,” said Cathy Story, director of community collaboration for Quality Health Network.

“Our job is to help navigate complicated issues and processes surrounding whole person health or SDOH. We help bring key partners and thought leaders to the table for the issue at hand and facilitate meaningful discussions to execute strategies to thrive long-term,” Story said.

Working with Collaborise will help engage cross-community collaboration, determine tools to measure success, aid in garnering grants when needed and ultimately improve access to services.

“We are on-the-ground support. We are in the trenches learning what’s working, what’s not. We determine where the strengths lie and where we can infuse ideas to empower positive change,”  Story said.

For more information about Collaborise, visit the website at www.collaborise.org or send an email to cstory@qualityhealthnetwork.org.