To eliminate health disparities and health inequities, UCSF serves as a founding member of The San Francisco Health Improvement Partnership (SFHIP) – a cross-sector collaboration designed to improve the health and wellness of all San Franciscans.
Every three years, SFHIP conducts a Community Health Needs Assessment, which provides focus and direction for the City of San Francisco's community health agenda. The SFHIP Steering Committee uses the results of the Community Health Needs Assessment to prioritize foundational health issues and address health needs to prevent disease and death in San Francisco. UCSF Health adopts these priority areas to inform an implementation strategy for each of our hospitals – UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights, UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital San Francisco, and Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital.
Read the 2022 San Francisco Community Health Needs Assessment
Review our 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment Implementation Strategy
Through a multi-sectoral collaborative process, UCSF has developed strategic ways to address prioritized community health needs. Here are the implementation strategies for 2019:
| Priorities | Strategic Initiatives & Goals |
| Racial health inequities & poverty | Anchor Institution Initiative to promote health equity through workforce development, procurement, and community investment |
| Food security |
Food Security Task Force to ensure all pregnant Medi-Cal women are food-secure EatSF to increase access to fresh fruit and vegetables for low-income individuals |
| Housing security | Benioff Homeless and Housing Initiative to develop, disseminate, and advocate for evidence-based solutions to prevent and end homelessness |
| Social, emotional, and behavioral health & access to care | Behavioral Health and Homelessness in San Francisco initiative to improve system coordination, enhance access to treatment, and increase community engagement |
Our community benefit valuation is the total net cost of charity care, undercompensated medical care, professional education, and research minus the cost of any reimbursement, philanthropic support, or supplemental funding.
In the table below, physician costs represent the cost to the hospital of retaining subspecialists who provide care to uninsured/underinsured patients. Other categories capture the underfunded overhead for programs that are otherwise funded by grants or contracts. These grants and contracts provide critical staff that the hospital would otherwise have to support, but do not fully cover the costs of delivering these services. UCSF Health's policy and methods for calculating these figures are available upon request.
| Snapshot of benefits: 2019 | |
| Economic Value | Fiscal Year 2019 |
| Cost of charity care provided | $14,752,000 |
| Cost in excess of reimbursement for public coverage programs | $944,376,000 |
| Support provided for academic and teaching programs | $167,269,000 |
| Payments to student residents for training and to help care for patients | $50,860,000 |
| Payments to ensure physician coverage for uninsured/underinsured patients | $16,135,000 |
| Payments to faculty for services to support healthcare mission | $47,086,000 |
| Total | $1,240,478,000 |
