Six Chicago hospital systems and the American Medical Association will invest $6 million in local businesses and organizations on the city's West Side over the next several years.
The participating hospitals are: Rush University Medical Center, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, AMITA Health, Cook County Health, Sinai Health System and University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System.
The collaborative, called West Side United, was initially formed by the hospital systems in 2017 with the aim to improve social, economic and structural determinants of health by improving access to community resources.
The group aims to shrink the gap between life expectancies of downtown Chicago residents and 10 West Side neighborhoods by 50 percent in the next decade.
"The 16-year death gap between the Loop and Chicago's West Side is unjust, unnatural and must be addressed by improving the economic conditions that drive poor health," said Rush University Medical Center CEO Omar Lateef, MD. "Hospitals — the economic engines in the communities they serve — can do just that by directing a very small portion of their investment portfolios to allow thousands of small businesses and community organizations excluded from the traditional financial sector to create jobs and opportunity."