ADVOCATE HEALTH AND HOSPITALS CORP

Advocate health care (ahc) is the largest health system in illinois and a national leader in clinical innovation, health outcomes, consumer experience and value-based care. One of the state's largest private employers, the system serves patients across 9 hospitals, including two children's campuses, and more than 250 sites of care. Advocate health care is engaged in hundreds of clinical trials and research studies, and is nationally recognized for its expertise in cardiology, neurosciences, oncology, and pediatrics. To learn more, visit exceptional care any time, any where | advocate health care. Advocate health (ah) is the third-largest nonprofit, integrated health system in the united states, created from the combination of advocate aurora health and atrium health. Providing care under the names advocate health care in illinois; atrium health in the carolinas, georgia and alabama; and aurora health care in wisconsin, advocate health is a national leader in clinical innovation, health outcomes, consumer experience and value-based care. Wake forest university school of medicine serves as the academic core of the enterprise. Advocate health is nationally recognized for its expertise in heart and vascular, neurosciences, oncology, pediatrics and rehabilitation, as well as organ transplants, burn treatments and specialized musculoskeletal programs. For reporting community benefits in compliance with the illinois community benefits act (2003), the content of this report will focus on advocate aurora's illinois hospitals which are identified as "advocate" for state reporting and local brand identity purposes. This document provides a summary of community health programs and activities completed across advocate in 2021--demonstrating fulfillment of all federal and illinois state requirements while also living out our commitment to addressing the root causes of health access. Description of advocate health care (illinois). While advocate is one of two organizations that merged in april 2018 to become advocate aurora health, advocate in illinois maintains a separate fein and therefore the narrative that immediately follows pertains predominantly to advocate health care (illinois). Advocate is a not-for-profit provider that is affiliated with both the evangelical lutheran church in america and the united church of christ. The organization is one of the largest fully integrated health care systems in illinois and one of the largest health care providers in the midwest. In 2024, as part of a network of nearly 250 sites of care in illinois, advocate's more than 37,000 team members provided care at nine hospitals, including a children's hospital located on two campuses (oak lawn and park ridge, illinois), totaling 3,718 licensed beds. Advocate had a combined total of 312,359 inpatient admissions, 1,683,079 outpatient visits and 524,481 emergency department visits (total trauma and non-trauma) in 2024. In addition, advocate is recognized as having one of the largest home health care companies in the state with 31,067 admits in 2024, and advocate hospice had 129,440 hospice patient days. Recognitions & accomplishments see attachments for 2024 system awards & accoladesculture and diversitysee attachment for 2024 peoples, leadership, dei awardsmodern healthcare's 100 most influential people in healthcare. Advocate health ceos jim skogsbergh and eugene wood were named to modern healthcare's 100 most infulential people in healthcare 2023 list, recognizing leaders who helped their organization achieve measurable results, improve de&i efforts and are considerd a leading voice in the industry. Click here.36 hospitals on forbes list of best employers for diversity. Advocate aurora health is among the 36 health systems and hospitals to make the list of america's best employers for diversity. The rankings are based on a survey of 60,000 americans working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. Click here.other notable advocate aurora accomplishments achieved in 2024 are as follow:advocate health care workforce continued to exhibit exceptional flexibilty and creativity, continuing remote work for non-essential employees while working to address issues related to covid-19 in the hospitals and in the community. Advocate aurora maintained safety protocols/procedures appropriate for accessing all sites of care. Continued our donation program with project c.u.r.e., a non-profit organization that will responsibly redistribute donated medical supplies and equipment to under-resourced areas around the globe, for all advocate health care facilities. In 2024, advocate health care donated 79,600 lbs of medical supplies and equipment to project c.u.r.e. And il hospitals diverted 4,018 tons of materials for recycling, equvalent to the weight of 803 adult elephants. In 2024, advocate achieved the following:environmental leadership. Advocate health's commitment to environmental sustainability is rooted in supporting a healthy environment for our patients, teammates and the communities we are privileged to serve. We recognize that the health of our people and the strength of our economy are tied to clean air, energy security, reliable food systems, and strong, resilient communities. As advocate health works to reduce the environmental and health impacts of health care, its environmental stewardship practices ease the burden of health care costs both directly (lower energy costs) and indirectly (lower environmentally related disease burden) and helps to save resources for future generations. Lead on environmental sustainability is one of advocate health's 6 strategic pledges, and our environmental sustainability work is governed by 5 core commitments: > 50% reduction in scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 by 2030, we will achieve carbon neutrality and strive for net zero carbon by 2035.achieve net zero by 2050 = offsetting and removing all ghg emissions reduce chemicals of concern throughout our system build a climate resilience strategy that ensures continuous operations and centers our most vulnerable community membersthrough our membership and participation in several sustainability leadership councils and groups, we are collaboratively addressing multiple sustainability issues, including safer chemicals in furnishings and medical products, climate resiliency, clinical plastics recycling, and environmentally preferable and local purchasing. Our leadership is spurring the movement toward healthier and more sustainable practices throughout the health care sector and in the wider marketplace. Current partnerships include:healthcare anchor network and the impact purchasing commitment health care climate councilhealthcare plastics recycling coalition healthcare facility advisory boardpractice greenhealth sustainable leadership purchasing council collaborative for healthcare action to reduce medtech emissions (charme)ceres policy networkthe cool food pledge in 2024, we launched more than 10 different task forces that are helping to integrate sustainability into the way we design strategy, operate our facilities, and provide care. We are crafting an energy decarbonization plan that will move us to 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and significantly reduce our operational energy use while also driving significant cost reductions that we can then reinvest in patient care. We've developed a supply chain decarbonization strategy that will build sustainability into our sourcing process and engage our suppliers and service providers in reaching our net zero target. And we are working with social impact and our clinical leadership to prioritize a set of key initiatives to drive innovation, reduce our environmental footprint, provide less carbon-intensive care, and support community resilience and well-being. National recognition. Advocate health is consistently recognized for its commitment and achievements in sustainable health care. Advocate health was recognized as a national leader in environmental sustainability by practice greenhealth , winning the "system for change award," for 2024 sustainability performance - reflecting the enterprise-level commitment to deeply embedding sustainability within our operations. In addition to the system-level award, three of our illinois hospitals were listed as the top 25 sustainable hospitals in the nation. All advocate health care hospitals placed within the top 20% of sustainability performers nationwide.several of our il hospitals are energy star (estar) certified, which means they are in the top 25% of energy performers nationwide, which helps to significantly lower our contribution to air pollution and climate change, estar certified hospitals include: advocate christ medical center, oak lawn, illinois advocate good samaritan hospital, downers grove, illinois advocate illinois masonic medical center, chicago, illinois