HealthCARE Principles: A Model for Healthy City Collaboratives

Community health-improvement collaboratives, which represent both health care consumers and health care providers in efforts to improve health care systems at the local level, are becoming a major force for improving health care systems throughout the world (1-3). However, many authors have argued that members of local collaboratives must unite around shared principles in order for their efforts to be successful (4-7). This article describes the development of a set of ethical principles, based on essential health needs, that can serve as a common foundation for collaboratives attempting to improve local health care systems.