• Tyler Lian, Ana Bonilla-Martinez, Emily Eiler, Sai Sarnala, Susan Choi, Rosemary Thomas, and Jaya Aysola.
• Penn Medicine Center for Health Equity Advancement, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
• J Gen Intern Med. 2023 Sep 1; 38 (12): 282728312827-2831.

BackgroundFood access for patients remains a critical need for health systems to address given varying resource availability and inefficient coordination among health and food services.AimDevelop and evaluate the Food Access Support Technology (FAST), a centralized digital platform for food access that pairs health systems with food and delivery community-based organizations (CBOs).Setting And ParticipantsTwo health systems, 12 food partners, and 2 delivery partners in Philadelphia, PA.Program DescriptionUsing FAST, referrers can post requests for food delivery on recipients' behalf, which are reviewed and claimed by eligible CBOs that can prepare food boxes for delivery to people's homes.Program EvaluationBetween March 2021 and July 2022, FAST received 364 requests, representing 207 food insecure households in 51 postal codes. The platform facilitated the completion of 258 (70.9%) requests, with a median completion time of 5 (IQR 0-7) days and a median of only 1.5 days (IQR 0-5) for requests marked "urgent." Qualitative interviews with FAST end-users endorsed the usability of the FAST platform and its effectiveness in facilitating resource-sharing between partners.DiscussionOur findings suggest that centralized platforms can address household food insecurity by (1) streamlining partnerships between health systems and CBOs for food delivery and (2) facilitating the real-time coordination of resources among CBOs.© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Society of General Internal Medicine.

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