Our Optimal Health was initially called the Affordable and Sustainable Health Care (ASHC) project. A group of community leaders led by Phillip Cass wanted to bring a method for holding strategic conversations about civic issues called the Art of Hosting (AoH) to Columbus, Ohio. A ‘calling team’ formed in 2004 and a ‘taster evening’ was held in October 2005 to introduce AoH. The first AoH event for the Columbus community was held in March 2005 and attended by thirty-five people. At this session Marc Parnes, MD suggested holding an event to discuss the need for affordable and sustainable healthcare.
Beginning in August 2005 and continuing through 2007 representatives from the health, government, community, and business sectors had ongoing conversations about how to achieve affordable and sustainable health care for all in Franklin County. These conversation groups were called assemblies. In addition to community leaders, they were advertised to the public. A feasibility study began in August 2005 to assess Columbus readiness ‘to change to create conditions to envision and realize affordable and sustainable healthcare for all.’ On December 13, 2005, the first community assembly was attended by 110 people. They discussed ‘community-led infrastructures’ to advance their goals and strategies for making the system more affordable and sustainable.’ The second community assembly was held in February 2006 to address the question “How do we organize to create affordable and sustainable healthcare for everyone in Franklin County, Ohio?” Seventy people attended and the Core Hosting Team was formed from volunteers.
The Core Hosting Team had retreats in March 2006 and May 2006 to organize themselves to host more community assemblies. One hundred and five people attended an assembly in May 2006 to discuss the question “Given our vision what is the purpose of the healthcare system we want to create?” and determined that it is not about ‘sick care,’ but rather ‘obtaining optimal health and wellness for each of us.’ From each assembly they gathered data and identified new topics for discussion and inquiry. Assemblies met for two years with no specific time line for implementing solutions. In December 2006, the organization changed its name to Our Optimal Health (OOH). The group received financial funding from the Columbus Medical Association Foundation and other private and public sources. Access HealthColumbus served as the program administrator.
In a 2007 letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch Phillip Cass, chief executive officer of the Columbus Medical association, wrote that the organization determined the purpose of the healthcare system in Franklin County “…is to provide affordable and sustainable healthcare that supports optimal health and wellness for everyone in our community.” Furthermore, he explained their belief that the best solutions for problems in providing health care will not come from national or state politicians, but ‘come up from the community.’ An example of a program that evolved from the discussion sessions and embodied the organization’s philosophy of developing community solutions for health care was the volunteer operated Clintonville Health Community (CHC). Among CHC activities was recruiting volunteers to drive senior residents to medical appointments.
The Our Optimal Health Records (1,462 files, 1.79 gigabytes) contains administrative documents related to the organization, including founding documents, materials produced to host assemblies, data gathered during assemblies, digital photographs, meeting agendas and minutes, newsletters and publicity. There are also financial records and grant documents. File types found in the collection include, but are not limited to, Adobe Acrobat and Photoshop documents and Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Visio documents. Digital photographs are primarily jpg files with a small number of GIF and PNG files. PowerPoint files found in the collection have been saved as Adobe PDF files. The PDF files are saved within each folder they are located in folders titled ‘PDF Power Point.’ Folder names, sub-folder names and file names are those given by the record creators.
The folders are arranged in alphabetical order by title.
The collection is open to the public and available for research purposes. Materials are not available online. Please contact the MHC for further information about accessing the collection. Restrictions, including copyright, may exist and some electronic files may have particular software or hardware requirements to utilize. The MHC staff cannot guarantee that all electronic files will be fully functional. The MHC may charge for providing copies of electronic files.
[Identification of item], Our Optimal Health Records, SPEC.202428.OPTIMALHEATH, Medical Heritage Center, Health Sciences Library, The Ohio State University.