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Risant, a nonprofit division of Kaiser Permanente, recently acquired Greensboro’s Cone Health. (Carolyn de Berry for The Assembly)

Morning, gang.

We know you’re nailing down the last items on your gift lists this week, baking for the office holiday party, or maybe even planning the perfect New Year’s Eve. We’ll be taking a holiday publishing break ourselves from Dec. 23 through January 3.

But before those visions of sugar plumbs begin dancing in all our heads, we’re bringing you a few important end-of-year stories.

For Cone Health, the big gift under the tree is something they’ve wanted for years: a well-resourced and like-minded partner to help navigate the increasingly competitive world of modern healthcare without giving up their values and identity. I had the pleasure of working with Rose Hoban of NC Health News on this deep dive into what Risant’s recent acquisition of Cone means for the health system and Greensboro, where Cone was founded with a single hospital in 1911.

The city’s Human Rights Department is also looking to the new year—and P.R. Lockhart examines its plans this week.

Let’s get into it.

— Joe Killian

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Why Kaiser Bet on Cone Health for its N.C. Expansion

Urgent care centers have helped reduce the demand at the emergency room of Cone Health’s flagship hospital and provided easier access for patients across the city.

Cone Health’s modest growth pattern could change with this month’s finalization of an acquisition by Risant Health, a new nonprofit health care provider that California-based Kaiser Permanente formed in a deal announced over the summer.

Risant and Cone are already touting the potential benefits in Guilford County. After the initial June announcement, Risant said it was prepared to invest as much as $1.7 billion into helping Cone update its facilities and support system growth.

Cone is the second system in the country to sign on with Risant, which finalized the acquisition of Pennsylvania’s Geisinger Health in April.

Risant’s leaders claim that their goal is “expanding and accelerating the adoption of value-based care”—which, if successful, would be nothing short of a transformation for U.S. health care.
Right now, people in Greensboro wonder what it will mean for them.

Read the full story here.

— Joe Killian

Read this newsletter online or contact The Thread team with tips and feedback at greensboro@theassemblync.com.

Greensboro’s Human Rights Department Reflects, and Looks to the New Year

At a meeting last week, members of the various committees under the Human Rights Department made plans for 2025. (Photo by P.R. Lockhart for The Thread)

December is often a time for reflection and strategizing for the year ahead. This was the case for the numerous boards and commissions that fall under Greensboro’s Human Rights Department, which met last Wednesday to discuss how to better partner with community members and other organizations.

Members of the department’s five commissions: the Ad-Hoc Committee on African American Disparities, the Commission on the Status of Women, the Human Rights Commission, the International Advisory Committee, and the Transgender Task Force, also shared updates on their work.

Last week’s meeting was the latest in a training series aimed at helping the commissions improve serving residents. It also gives the commissioners tools to better present community needs to the city, according to Human Rights Department Director Love Jones.

“It’s really a bi-directional service effort that educates both the city government and the community about the best ways to get the resources that will make Greensboro the best lived experience,” said Jones, who has led the department since 2013.

In addition to the volunteer commissions, the Human Rights Department is also responsible for a mix of other city services. Among them are fair housing, public accommodations investigations, and support for people who have interacted with the justice system or need reentry services. The department’s Human Rights Commission also hosts an annual breakfast honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

While human rights guidance is largely determined by a mix of federal, state, and local measures, the department also responds to residents’ needs. The COVID-19 pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020 simultaneously called attention to how racial disparities continue to affect quality of life. The Human Rights Department has worked to boost its community presence and doubled in size, going from four employees to 10.

“[A]s far as what’s evolved, it’s the community’s awareness of our existence, but also the community’s expectations of our existence,” Jones said. “And the extent to which they want the department to support the unpacking of wicked problems attached to human rights issues.”

The start of 2025, which will include the inauguration of a new presidential administration, could also bring a shift. For now, commissioners like International Advisory Committee (IAC) Chair Fanta Dorley say that they are focused on just meeting community needs and helping where they can.

The IAC’s work helping Greensboro’s multiple immigrant and refugee communities comes at a fraught time in national politics, Dorley said. That adds to an already complicated task of building trust and relationships in those communities.

“There’s no cookie-cutter way to address a challenge that refugees face, everyone is different,” Dorley said.

As the network of volunteers and city officials continues to support human rights and anti-discrimination work, city leaders at the meeting also acknowledged Greensboro recently lost a champion of these protections with the death of City Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson earlier this month.

Mourners carry Yvonne Johnson into the chapel at Bennett College last week. (Photo by P.R. Lockhart for The Thread.)

“We will have to move forward, but we will certainly remember her smile and her love for the people of the city of Greensboro,” said District 1 Councilwoman Sharon Hightower. “She truly, truly believed in serving. That was her mantra: service, the rent you pay for living on this Earth.”

— P.R. Lockhart

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The Assembly is a digital magazine covering power and place in North Carolina. Sent this by a friend? Subscribe to The Thread as well as our statewide newsletter.

Joe Killian is The Assembly's Greensboro editor. He joined us from NC Newsline, where he was senior investigative reporter. He spent a decade at The News & Record covering cops and courts, higher education, and government.