HEALTH SYSTEMS UNITE TO FIGHT ANOTHER CRISIS: GUN VIOLENCE

With President Biden unveiling executive actions on Thursday to strengthen gun safety following mass shootings in Colorado and Georgia, Northwell Health announced today that numerous health care networks have joined its campaign to recognize gun violence as a public health crisis and identify solutions aimed at reducing the bloodshed.

Business Wire reported that Northwell’s newly established Gun Violence Prevention Learning Collaborative for Health Systems and Hospitals is a multi-year, interactive and apolitical forum that seeks to share and develop best practices for preventing firearm injury and death.

More than 300 individuals, including executives, clinical leaders, researchers, and other health care workers from CommonSpirit Health, University of Chicago Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Medical Center, and other hospitals and health systems have joined the Learning Collaborative.

Most members of the Collaborative, who will begin meeting on April 20, signed on to the campaign before the ongoing crisis jumped to national prominence again with the recent mass shootings of 10 people, including a police officer, in a Boulder supermarket, and eight in Atlanta massage parlors.

“President Biden’s executive actions are an important first step in confronting a public health emergency that is killing tens of thousands of people every year. The recent killings in Boulder and Atlanta underscore the reality that gun violence is an epidemic that is not going away on its own,” said Northwell President and CEO Michael Dowling, who pledged $1 million in 2019 to create the health system’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention, led by pediatric trauma surgeon Chethan Sathya, MD.

“As health care providers who have been on the front lines of battling the coronavirus pandemic for the past year, we have an obligation to set aside political concerns, and devote time and resources to identify solutions that will help curtail this senseless violence. By working together, sharing best practices, and promoting ongoing dialogue, our goal is to develop action plans that can be put in place in our local communities to reduce the risk of further bloodshed.”

“Gun violence is preventable – and as health care providers who deal daily with these senseless tragedies, we must commit to addressing this problem in a preventive way, and not just after the fact,” said CommonSpirit Health CEO Lloyd H. Dean.

Gun violence-hit historic highs in 2020, including 611 mass shootings (defined as four or more people shot and/or killed in a single event) and 43,530 gun-related deaths, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

To address gun violence holistically, the new Learning Collaborative will bring hospitals, health systems, and like-minded community organizations to the table for an open dialogue and collaboration, as well as opportunities to utilize the lessons learned by others to help drive strategies within their respective organizations.

Each of the three-year-long phases contain monthly seminars and breakthrough sessions, including talks from medical experts, community organizations, law enforcement, public health and policy, and survivors. Topics include teaching firearm safety, clinical screening for firearm injury and collaborating with schools.

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