Northwell Health Partners With Instacart to Expand Access to Nutritious Food for Patients and Staff

Programs support maternal health, youth nutrition education and employee wellness

NEW HYDE PARK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Northwell Health, New York’s largest health system, and Instacart (NASDAQ: CART), the leading grocery technology company in North America, today announced a partnership through the Instacart Health initiative that leverages Instacart’s platform and products to expand access to nutritious food, inspire sustainable healthy choices, and scale food as health programs to reach diverse Northwell communities.

“Raising health is more than the care Northwell provides in our hospitals and doctors’ offices. It’s also about how we raise up the people in our communities and how we raise our expectations of what health can be, which is why Northwell contributes more than $2 billion in community benefit annually,” said Debbie Salas-Lopez, MD, MPH senior vice president of Northwell’s Office of Community Wellness and Population Health. “The collaboration with Instacart is part of our comprehensive community health effort and will provide tools and resources to access nutritious foods for our staff, patients and communities.”

Through the partnership, Northwell will use Instacart Health tools to support unique programs that address social determinants of health including access to healthy food and transportation.

“We believe that Food is Health. And it’s important to us to meet the needs of the communities we serve, which is why we pursued an Instacart partnership,” said Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell.

The first program to launch integrates Instacart Health tools into Northwell’s Center for Maternal Health Maternal Outcomes and Morbidity Collaborative (MOMS) so that moms-to-be who are food insecure have improved access to fresh and nutritious food. Northwell Health is particularly focused on addressing maternal health in Black and Brown communities who have long-standing disparities in maternal care. Using Instacart Health Fresh Funds, category-specific online grocery stipends, and Northwell’s Healthy Choices Storefront on Instacart, Northwell is providing moms-to-be with nutrition guidance and support during their pregnancies.

“Instacart offers families across the country the convenience of same-day delivery from their favorite stores, reaching over 98% of U.S. households. By partnering with Northwell Health, we’re leveraging our scale and Health tools to create impactful nutrition access and education programs that help solve real community challenges,” said Sarah Mastrorocco, vice president and general manager of Instacart Health. “Studies show that a healthy diet during pregnancy can greatly improve the health of both moms and babies and reduce the risk of several common complications.¹ By offering our Fresh Funds stipends to give mothers more convenient access to nutritious food, and consumer tools that make Northwell Health’s expert guidance actionable, we’re supporting programs that help make our communities healthier.”

For more information about Northwell’s community health department, click here.

About Northwell Health

Northwell Health is New York State’s largest health care provider and private employer, with 21 hospitals, about 900 outpatient facilities and more than 12,000 affiliated physicians. We care for over two million people annually in the New York metro area and beyond, thanks to philanthropic support from our communities. Our 87,000 employees – 18,900 nurses and 4,900 employed doctors, including members of Northwell Health Physician Partners – are working to change health care for the better. We’re making breakthroughs in medicine at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. We're training the next generation of medical professionals at the visionary Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. For information on our more than 100 medical specialties, visit Northwell.edu and follow us @NorthwellHealth on Facebook, X, Instagram and LinkedIn.

About Instacart

Instacart, the leading grocery technology company in North America, works with grocers and retailers to transform how people shop. The company partners with more than 1,500 national, regional, and local retail banners to facilitate online shopping, delivery and pickup services from more than 85,000 stores across North America on the Instacart Marketplace. Instacart makes it possible for millions of people to get the groceries they need from the retailers they love, and for approximately 600,000 Instacart shoppers to earn by picking, packing and delivering orders on their own flexible schedule. The Instacart Platform offers retailers a suite of enterprise-grade technology products and services to power their e-commerce experiences, fulfill orders, digitize brick-and-mortar stores, provide advertising services, and glean insights. With Instacart Ads, thousands of CPG brands – from category leaders to emerging brands – partner with the company to connect directly with consumers online, right at the point of purchase. With Instacart Health, the company is providing tools to increase nutrition security, make healthy choices easier for consumers, and expand the role that food can play in improving health outcomes. For more information, visit www.instacart.com/company, and to start shopping, visit www.instacart.com.

¹ National Institutes of Health. (2021, April 22). Healthy diet before, during pregnancy linked to lower risk of complications, NIH study suggests. Retrieved from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/healthy-diet-before-during-pregnancy-linked-lower-risk-complications-nih-study-suggests