Healthcare and hunger relief entities theoretically make great partners in supporting food insecure individuals within communities. In practice, there can often be hurdles to effective collaboration. The Federation of Virginia Food Banks, in association with the state’s seven member food banks, aims to dismantle these barriers with a three-year plan to reinforce food bank and healthcare partnerships.

The initiative, which elevates the effort to a statewide level, meets requirements of statewide hospital networks and insurance firms more effectively. The catalyst for this mission was Sentara Healthcare, a large nonprofit hospital network, which started investing in food security as part of its social responsibility plan. To eliminate the need for liaising with seven different food banks, it reached out to the Federation. The initiative was fueled by a $1 million grant from Feeding America’s Boundless Collaboration program, allocated for planning and implementation.

One of the Federation‘s strategies to enhance these partnerships involves establishing a standard definition for a “healthy” food pantry. The Federation introduced a statewide Healthy Pantry Model consisting of roughly 20 practices that food pantries can implement to better support the health of their communities. This model was created by a design team comprising numerous healthcare entities, community partners, local food pantries, food bank staff members, and neighbors dealing with food insecurity.

According to the Federation, the primary necessity for a healthy pantry, as stated by neighbors, is fresh produce. Healthcare providers, on the other hand, emphasized the need for patients to access the pantry easily through measures like after-hour availability, online ordering, or home delivery. Other emerging requirements include culturally familiar food and specific dietary options such as low sodium foods.

The Federation is now initiating a year-long process to encourage pantries to evaluate their current practices and utilize available resources and grants to achieve the common standard. A neighbor survey will assist in measuring the impact of the work. They also aim to standardize a communication tool for referring food-insecure healthcare patients to hunger relief organizations. For this, the Virginia Department of Health‘s prior decision to adopt the Unite Us communications tool, which allows healthcare providers to refer patients in a manner that adheres to patient privacy (or HIPAA) regulations, proved beneficial.

Their next step is to connect referred patients to community partners offering wraparound services. The Virginia Department of Health recently granted $175,000 to hire referral coordinators to facilitate this process. The Unite Us platform may eventually serve as a means for food banks to receive reimbursement from insurance providers for providing nutritious food to food-insecure people.

Citing the value of the initiative, the Federation‘s Executive Director stressed the importance of collaboration at the state level. He emphasized that both hospital networks and insurance companies demand such cooperation, and that connection with the state government is crucial, regardless of whether the approach is through an 1115 waiver or federal grant money.