A 1,079-bed hospital, JHH is located in the heart of the Baltimore community. Nationally recognized and internationally renowned, JHH serves as the primary teaching hospital for the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and is an unparalleled center for medical research. With state-of-the-art technologies and facilities designed to accommodate patients of all ages and needs, JHH operates over 300 programs to improve the health and wellness of Baltimore residents.

A disproportionate share of low-income, uninsured and Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries residing in our service area seek treatment at JHH. The 340B program helps JHH offset losses incurred in caring for the most vulnerable and underserved individuals in our community. In FY22, the hospital’s disproportionate share (DSH) percentage was 19%, well above the 11.75% threshold to qualify for 340B drug discounts. A key benefit of the 340B program is that by leveraging access to discounted outpatient drugs, JHH is better able to absorb the double-digit inflation rates and rapidly rising cost of drugs each year.

The Community We Serve

In Fiscal Year 2021, our hospital conducted a community health needs assessment (CHNA) to identify the most important health issues in the neighborhoods surrounding the hospital and developed an implementation strategy to address them. Lack of safe, affordable housing, access to employment opportunities and neighborhood safety topped the list of concerns in our service areas based on surveys, town halls meetings, and stakeholder interviews. See our most recent Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) for a community snapshot, CHNA findings, strategic partnerships, community initiatives and economic development projects on the horizon.

JHH’s FY22 340B savings of $211 million are far less than the hospital’s total Community Benefit activity in FY22 – an estimated over $321 million. For many years, the hospital has invested in programming and community support efforts well over and above the savings it receives from the 340B program.

Investing in Our Community

The 340B Drug Pricing Program provides eligible hospitals with the financial flexibility needed to invest in tailored solutions that address the unique needs of their communities. If the program were eliminated or scaled back, safety net hospitals nationwide, like the 340B-eligible hospitals in the Johns Hopkins Health System, would struggle to maintain long-standing vital community partnerships.

Some examples of innovative community outreach programs at JHH include:

• Supportive Housing: An innovative partnership created and filled 200 new permanent housing slots for currently homeless persons in Baltimore. Additional services are provided including connection to mental health and SUD treatment, home health visits and assistance with paying bills and employment.
• Bedside Medication Delivery: This free service ensures patient receive prescribed discharge medications in a timely way with robust education to promote medication adherence and eliminate barriers, like lack of transportation, to improve health outcomes and avoid readmission.
• Break the Cycle: This new violence intervention program serves patients coming to JHH with blunt force intentional trauma (including gunshot wounds and stabbings). Patients are met at the bedside by Peer Recovery Specialists who have experienced similar trauma in the past. JHH works with the patient and their family to provide stabilizing social services and assistance to help protect against retaliation and repeat trauma.
• Home-based Medication Management: The hospital dispatches pharmacists to patients’ homes to review prescription administration instructions, dispose of expired medications, and color-code pill containers when labels are too small to read.
• Specialized, population-specific clinics: The hospital maintains the region’s only Sickle Cell Center providing comprehensive services for adult (predominantly African American) patients.
• Broadway Center for Addiction: A national model for comprehensive substance abuse treatment and detoxification services, the clinic provides medications to address opioid addiction without regard for ability to pay and partners with Helping Up Mission to provide housing, transportation and meals, when needed.
• Assertive Community Treatment (ACT): A unique program providing care in the home or appropriate community settings for individuals with major mental illness who have been repeatedly hospitalized due to challenges engaging outpatient treatment. Eligible individuals can apply for financial aid through the hospital to cover 100% of the cost of care.

Johns Hopkins is committed to listening and learning from the community residents we serve. We strive to address their most pressing needs and highest priorities through direct initiatives and leveraged partnerships to improve community health and wellness in our closest neighborhoods.

Read the Community Benefit Report about our Health System’s continued commitment to community at each of its six hospitals.