Regionalism

Why Regionalism

As residents of the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area—Suburban Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District—we travel seamlessly across borders to live, work and play on a daily basis.  In many ways this level of interconnectedness makes us think and function as if we’re one region.  However, in truth, we exist in two states with multiple jurisdictions plus the District of Columbia, and each have their own policies, practices, rules and requirements that govern how we live, where we are able to work, and where and how we receive necessary services.  This political fragmentation creates barriers to economic opportunity and limits access to much-needed health care and social services for many communities across our region, particularly for low- and moderate-income individuals and their families, and can negatively impact health and well-being. 

To address these problems, CHF believes that the District, Suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia should and can take a regional approach to working together to improve opportunity, access, services and outcomes for our region’s residents in meaningful ways—a concept simply called Regionalism.  One example of CHF’s commitment to working regionally across jurisdictions to improve health can be found through the work of the Regional Primary Care Coalition.

Other ways in which working regionally benefits our communities are outlined in our 2010 Annual Report, Connections:  Building the Case For Regionalism, where eight leaders in workforce development, government, and the business and nonprofit sectors share their insights for effective collaboration.  Some of these include:

  • Using Regionalism as the basis for accelerating change by bringing together political, nonprofit, community, and health leaders from every jurisdiction to declare common needs, common agendas, share successful innovations  that have improved care for vulnerable residents, and commit to working regionally to address them.
  • Developing a clear vision and pathways for working on broad issues like health, education and child care, building on the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government’s Region Forward 2050 agenda.
  • Developing seamless health care and other support services that transcend political jurisdictions and calling upon leaders in public health, health policy, and think tanks to take on the goal of assisting us in developing a system and structures that support better integration.
  • Addressing critical socioeconomic issues that also impact health such as bringing jobs to the region, creating regional licensing and credentialing requirements for health care workers, and providing federal funding for workforce development on a regional versus a state-by-state basis.

CHF plans to use these recommendations and integrate them into our work.  We also are committed to sharing them broadly and joining other funders, policymakers, the business community, community leaders and advocates as we work regionally to tackle the multiple issues that bear on the health of all of our residents, transcending our multiple political and geographic boundaries.

We hope you’ll join us in any way you can, because improving health is, and never has been, solely just about us as individuals living in separate neighborhoods. It’s about the power we collectively have as a community of residents to make life better across our region.