Breakout Session Descriptions
Topic Tracks (select one to jump to sessions)
Leading Community Health Assessments to Set Priorities, Programs, and Policies
CHANGE Tool: Assessing Policy, Systems and Environmental Change Strategies for Identifying and Addressing Community Priorities
Ann M. Ussery-Hall/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Community Health Assessment aNd Group Evaluation (CHANGE) is a community health assessment tool that provides communities with a snapshot of local health policy, systems, and environmental change strategies currently in place, and helps identify areas where such strategies are lacking. The tool can be used to: 1) gain a picture of the policies and strategies employed within the various sectors of a community; 2) develop a community action plan for improving the environment to facilitate and support healthy lifestyles; and 3) assist with prioritizing community needs and allocating available resources.
CHANGE is being used by ten communities as part of the Action Communities for Health, Innovation, and EnVironmental ChangE (ACHIEVE) Initiative, a partnership between the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and the YMCA of the USA, and funded by the CDC. After ACHIEVE, CHANGE will be available for other community-based organizations for use in their communities.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) discuss the CHANGE tool and how it can be used by communities to address policy, systems, and environmental change strategies to improve health; and 2) identify sectors and topics addressed by the CHANGE tool.
Healthy Hall: One Community's Practical Guide to Conducting Successful Community Assessments that Lead to Powerful Outcomes
Christy Moore/The Medical Center Foundation, Inc. at Northeast Georgia Health System, Inc., Olivia Erbele/Georgia Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health, and Bill Stiles, Stiles Healthcare Strategy, Inc.
This session will present key elements of Healthy Hall’s organization, execution, and use of an assessment for health and broader community improvement. Healthy Hall is an organization of community volunteers and leaders that has guided three community assessment projects in Hall County, Georgia over the past ten years, measuring “health” along nine dimensions: social, physical, emotional, economic, spiritual, aesthetic, occupational, educational and environmental.
Healthy Hall works to complement information that is already available while keeping tabs on specific data tracked in previous assessments. Findings are shared with the community and are available on the Healthy Hall website. Healthy Hall also communicates specific areas of concern identified in the assessment to appropriate community groups or organizations for consideration and action. The presentation will include assessment methodologies, the respective expertise and roles of community partners and of a hired consultant, specific findings that underline the need to focus on disparities reductions, and methods for communicating results in a fashion digestible and usable by the community at large.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) understand and articulate how to conduct a statistically valid community assessment that is “digestible” to the community at large; 2) identify helpful tools, lessons, and strategies that can be replicated (with tweaking) and used for assessments in other communities; and 3) understand and articulate how to use community assessment results to improve the health of the community.
Techniques for Collaborative Hospital-Community Health Assessment
Patricia Isennock/Franklin Square Hospital Center, and Terri Kingeter/Baltimore County
This interactive session with both hospital and community presenters will highlight key steps in the planning, and implementation of a collaborative needs assessment based on the Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) process developed by the National Association of County & City Health Officials. The Southeast Area Network – a coalition of service providers - began the East Baltimore County Assessment led by Franklin Square Hospital, in 2005. Presentation and discussion will cover the process of a successful community health assessment, including: lessons learned about the definition of the community and the inclusion of additional community representatives; tools and communication methods for engaging community partners; time management tactics and the nuts-and-bolts of an efficient and effective assessment; indicator selection and evaluation for data gathering; and potential roles of and funding for independent consultants.
At the conclusion of this session, the participants will be able to: 1) compare and contrast the MAPP and ACHI assessment tools; 2) identify factors to select data as indicators for evaluation; 3) describe three techniques for maintaining coalition engagement in the assessment process; and 4) state three tactics for time management of assessments.
Turning Health Assessment Data into Community Indicator Systems for Action: "Health Matters in San Francisco" and "Healthy Carroll (Maryland) Vital Signs"
Abbie Yant/Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, and Patricia Supik/The Partnership for a Healthier Carroll County
Conducting a community health assessment a challenge in itself. And then, building ways to effectively communicate assessment findings to multiple stakeholders, and helping them use those findings to set priorities and take action, is an equally important but often overlooked challenge of its own. This session will feature two communities from opposite ends of the country, and their different solutions building indicator systems that to put assessment data to use.
Health Matters in San Francisco is a Web-based platform designed to improve community health, quality of life, and sustainability. It provides public health, health care, and health status data, as well as additional resources for community planners and residents, such as socioeconomic and environmental information. In addition to serving as a comprehensive data source (with clear visual gauges that make data easy to understand), it also provides solutions (promising practices) and connections (community resources, events, and news). Created and operated through a citywide collaborative of non-profit hospitals, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and other health organizations and philanthropic foundations, this effort established in 1994 is based on a health needs assessment conducted every three years as required by California law.
Healthy Carroll Vital Signs identified key outcome indicators from its needs assessment and “packaged” them into a key indicators document that “takes the pulse” of the community across ten domains of health and well-being. Created by a county-wide healthy community partnership, the Vital Signs fosters wide engagement by senior agency leaders in understanding the population health landscape, setting specific health improvement targets with realistic timeframes, and informing interventions to move indicators in the right direction. The presenter will illustrate the process of defining and selecting indicators, the setting of improvement goals, and the many productive uses of the document and the collaborative energy it enables.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) describe the benefits of creating a community indicators system to broadly communicate and use assessment findings; 2) understand the resources required to create a community indicators system; and 3) state approaches to generating engagement by both organizations and true community representatives in tackling health assessment priorities.
Using Prevention Quality Indicators (PQI/PDI) and Inappropriate ED Utilization Data to Characterize Primary Care Need and Uncompensated Care Burden
Brad Walsh and Sue Pickens/Parkland Health & Hospital System, Dallas County Hospital District
Prevention quality indicators and emergency department utilization data open up the possibility for healthcare utilization data to be used to estimate community need, access to primary care, and uncompensated care burden. The Prevention Quality Indicators (PQIs) and the newer Pediatric Prevention Quality Indicators (PDIs) are a set of measures promulgated by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) that can be used to identify quality of care for “ambulatory care-sensitive conditions.” PQI rates have been used to assess the impact of specific health issues, such as diabetes among veterans, and asthma. Analysis of county and sub-county rates can reveal patterns of access to care, uncompensated care, and trauma among geographic areas and population groups.
A similar set of parameters for emergency department utilization (the NYU Algorithm) can provide an estimate of the amount of inappropriate or potentially avoidable ER use, based on diagnosis codes. With these databases, hospitals and other agencies can examine: 1) which geographic areas and demographic groups at greatest risk of poor health outcomes due to poor access to primary care; 2) where to place primary care clinic resources to impact these needs; and 3) how recent changes in primary care resources have changed these needs.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) describe PQIs/PDIs and the NYU Algorithm, and how to derive them from hospitalization and ER databases; 2) demonstrate an application of these parameters to county and sub-county geographic areas; and 3) describe how these parameters have been used in needs assessments and policy analysis.
A Voluntary Public/Private Collaborative Approach to Community Health Needs Assessment
Shreya N. Sasaki/Access to Care, Michael J. Moder/Moder Research & Communications, Inc., Anette Blatt/Scripps Health, and Leslie Ray/San Diego County Health and Human Services
This session will share San Diego’s experience of completing five community health needs assessments during the past 12 years. The theme of the session will focus on experience in the development of a public/private collaborative effort to meet State public benefit mandates through an organization focused explicitly on identification, planning and coordination of efforts to address the health needs of San Diego communities. The session will introduce the Community Health Improvement Partners (CHIP) organization, including its structure and funding; review the triennial needs assessment process including data used, organizational participation and process; demonstrate how the information is used to meet IRS regulations related to community benefit; and share some of the long-term community health improvement projects that have resulted from this effort.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will: 1) have the knowledge needed to begin planning a collaborative needs assessment process; 2) be able to identify types and sources of data to use for community health needs assessment; 3) establish a realistic time line for needs assessment completion; 4) identify potential collaborative participants; and 5) understand how data can be used to meet IRS community benefit regulations.
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Achieving Community Benefit Excellence
Community Benefit and Health Workforce Diversity
Kevin Barnett/Public Health Institute
This session will share key findings, recommendations, and lessons from the Connecting the Dots Initiative, a comprehensive statewide approach to increasing health professions workforce diversity. Non-profit hospitals can and should play a central role in the development of local and regional diversity strategies, applying their influence to more deeply engage health professions education institutions (HPEIs), working to expand the pipeline of under-represented youth with interest, knowledge, and support for entering the health professions, and advocating in the policy arena for K-12 reforms and other actions that advance the health professions diversity agenda.
The session will focus on selected practical recommendations, with particular attention to expanded roles for health professions, employers and community stakeholders, as well as internal hospital coordination between community benefit and human resource functions. The presenter will share specific examples to illustrate recommendations, and will facilitate a discussion of possible solutions to specific challenges identified by participants in their own communities, regions, and institutions.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will have increased knowledge of: 1) issues, challenges, and opportunities to increase health professions workforce diversity (HPWD) at all stages of the educational pipeline; 2) levers to facilitate meaningful engagement of academic institutions and health professions employers; and 3) strategies non-profit hospitals can use to frame the issues to engage leadership.
Community Benefit Scorecard: Bridging Community and Health System Goals
Alice Yoder/Lancaster General Hospital
A community benefit scorecard elevates the work of community benefit departments by clearly stating the focus, intent, and accountability of key initiatives. This interactive session will feature one model of a community benefit scorecard and allow participants time to consider how they might build their own. A process for selecting elements of the scorecard will be explained, including the connection to a community collaborative and linkages to health system strategic planning and operational goals. This scorecard identifies ranges of relative success, as well as a high level index. Participants will discuss how the scorecard is tied to departmental and individual performance goals. Key success factors to developing a scorecard, challenges, and how to obtain internal support will be highlighted. Discussion will focus on the appropriateness of program versus broad community measures such as Behavioral Risk Factor Survey and Morbidity/Mortality data.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) state the purpose and function of a community benefit scorecard; 2) list at least three critical success factors of building a community benefit scorecard; and 3) use tools to begin their own scorecard.
Community Benefits: Structure Matters, Organizational Independence and Visibility
Carol Paret/Memorial Hermann Healthcare System
This session will explore the history, decision making and reasoning that drove Memorial Hermann Healthcare System to form a separate organizational entity for carrying out its community benefit commitment, the advantages gained and the initial results.
Memorial Hermann is a multi-facility healthcare system located in Houston, a community with a 31 percent uninsured rate and a safety net infrastructure sufficient to meet only half of the community’s needs. This high rate of uninsured and lack of access places tremendous pressure on the community’s healthcare facilities and services, as well as their financial stability. Memorial Hermann has had an organized community benefit function since 1995, and like many organizations has used several methods to fund and manage these efforts. With the recognition that focus, visibility, innovation, sustainability, and measurable impact are keys to successful programs, creating a separate and distinct corporation responsible for community benefit was seen as a solution to many issues. Board involvement, funding methodologies, reporting, transparency, and visibility will all be explored as components of this approach.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) discuss the advantages and disadvantages of several organizational options for community benefit activities; and 2) identify the lessons learned and outcomes achieved by creating a separate community benefit corporate structure, and components that may be applicable to their own organization.
Integrating Community Health into the Mission, Vision, and Strategic Plan of a Hospital
Joan Quinlan/Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital has undergone a transformation of its community health and community benefit work in the last few years. The hospital recently added "...improving the health and well-being of the diverse communities we serve," to its formerly traditional mission statement of patient care, teaching and research. Then, to fully integrate community health not only into the mission, but also into the strategic plan, the hospital president directed each clinical department to develop significant community-oriented initiatives. Five departments are currently collaborating with the newly renamed Center for Community Health Improvement, formerly the Community Benefit Program, which now has a medical director as well as a center director, to launch initiatives. Governance has been put into place with the creation of an advisory committee chaired by the hospital president, and comprised of trustees, hospital, and community leaders.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) identify the strategy MGH employed to elevate the importance of community health and integrate into the mission, vision and strategic plan of the hospital; and 2) identify some of the challenges to full implementation and participate in brainstorming solutions.
Recipe for Developing and Sustaining a Successful Community Benefit Framework
Catherine Rees/Middlesex Hospital, Michelle Davis and Winfield Brown/Lowell General Hospital
This presentation will highlight the journeys of two hospitals – Lowell General in Massachusetts and Middlesex in Connecticut – to strengthen their community benefit programs by instituting programmatic, governance, executive, managerial, and community communications practices in keeping with an overall strategy. The presenters will share their “key ingredients” for successfully making community benefit an organizational priority, including board-approved policies and new staff capacity, plans to both get the entire organization involved in community benefits, and to bring together key community partners that share common goals for health and wellness.
This very practical session will illustrate specific actions these health care providers took, their results to date, and adjustments along the way. It will also provide attendees the opportunity to begin to write their own new “recipe” to bring back to their organization. Attendees will start to formulate their ingredients for successful, comprehensive community benefit programs, and will explore how to tailor their recipe to achieve maximum results in their organizations and communities.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) state specific actions to engage their entire organization (executive leadership, governance, physicians, staff) involved in community benefit; 2) discuss different staffing and organizational structures for community benefit departments; and 3)apply tools for internal and external community benefit communications.
Strategic Alignment of Governance, Management, and Community in Community Benefit Programming
Richard J. Bogue, PhD/Center for Health Futures at Florida Hospital
This session will help community benefit managers and leaders to improve the strategic vertical alignment of their organizations’ community benefit activities. Vertical alignment refers to the congruence of interests between governing bodies, organization management, and community partners. Strategic alignment happens when meeting community goals also advances organizational goals, and thereby creates sustainable community benefit initiatives. Achieving vertical alignment requires easy-to-use tools for clarifying goals and defining measures of progress toward goals. Strategic community benefit programming addresses specific health issues for specific populations, and also demonstrates a measurable reduction in health care costs or unnecessary utilization. Over the past five years, the presenter’s seven-hospital system has developed a set of governance and management practices for community benefit that enable vertical and strategic alignment. These practices offer widely applicable guidance for self-assessment of leadership and management practices in community benefit by other hospitals and health care organizations.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) discuss the importance of the alignment of governance, management and community for community benefit activities; and 2) examine the alignment between leadership, practice and the community of the community benefit activities in their own organizations.
Telling the Hospital Story: Going Beyond Schedule H
Donna Melkonian/American Hospital Association
The IRS Form 990 Schedule H raises the bar for reporting community benefit information. Not only will the Internal Revenue Service review what and how much tax-exempt hospitals do for their communities, but because the forms available to the media, potential donors, and consumer groups, the information will be widely available. Filing the 990 H provides hospital leaders with a great opportunity to tell their community benefit story in a standardized, credible way. This session will discuss how to report community benefit information on the 990 H and will engage participants in discussion of the roles and responsibilities of key hospital leaders in compiling and presenting information required by the IRS.
Topics to be covered include: how to use IRS worksheets to prepare information; how to augment program cost information with program narratives; and how to describe financial assistance policies and other policies requested on the form. Presenters and participants will discuss ways to use community benefit reporting to strengthen their organizations’ commitment to and capability in community benefit.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) understand why, when and how hospitals are expected to file the IRS Form 990H; 2) report community benefit on the IRS Form 990 H using a standardized framework; and 3) use the IRS Form 990 to effectively tell the community benefit story and to strengthen community benefit programs within hospitals.
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Improving Health by Addressing Our Social and Built Environments
From Assessment to Action: The Community Health Councils Model for Community Change
Gwendolyn Flynn/Community Health Councils, and LaVonna Blair Lewis/University of Southern California, School of Policy Planning and Development
Evidence suggests a correlation between communities’ health status and the physical and social environments within which they live. The session will describe a model for community change developed to help diminish health disparities in diabetes and cardiovascular disease among African Americans by a health advocacy organization, a community, and a university, and funded by the CDC. Presenters will share the change model, relate it to the empirical experience of a demonstration project, and highlight the challenges and successes embedded in this experience, with recommendations for other community-based participatory projects aiming to improve the health status of individuals in their communities.
The Community Health Councils, Inc., a health advocacy organization in Los Angeles, California, developed the approach in partnership with a community coalition and the University of Southern California. The model consists of a series of phases: community convening leading to problem definition; assessments of the physical, social, and resource environments leading to identification of gaps and opportunities; policy and programmatic interventions leading to community action. The experience led to successful advocacy for a local policy that has national implications for assisting in the transformation of nutritionally deficient or otherwise under resourced communities.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) increase understanding of the relationship between assessment data and the development of policy recommendations; 2) name elements of the Community Health Councils model for community change; 3) list risk factors not often considered by traditional health and research institutions; and 4) list three of five values inherent in the Community Health Councils model for community change.
CDC’s Steps Program: Improving Health Using Social and Environmental Change Strategies
Ann M. Ussery-Hall and Phyllis Nichols/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Lori R. Martin/Santa Clara County Public Health Department
Public health concerns such as obesity, diabetes, and asthma -- and the related risk factors of physical inactivity, poor nutrition, and exposure to tobacco smoke -- affect the lives of millions of Americans. To a large extent, the social and physical environment dictates whether or not people have access to opportunities for regular physical activity, healthy food and beverages and smoke-free grounds and facilities. To address these urgent and emergent chronic health concerns and unhealthy lifestyle behaviors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Steps Program funded 40 communities across the country to implement social and environmental change strategies. This session includes first-hand experience from a Steps community, as well as examples and summary data regarding additional Steps communities, about strategies they implemented to make the healthy choice the easy choice.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) describe the importance of social and environmental change strategies in the promotion of health and healthy lifestyle behaviors; 2) describe the Steps program's social and environmental change strategies and how they promote health and healthy lifestyle behaviors; and 3) obtain information on the implementation of the Steps program's social and environmental change strategies.
Community Health Behind Bars: Opportunities in Correctional Health
Camille Miller, Klaus K. Madsen and Liza M. Creel/Texas Health Institute, Vondie M. Woodbury/Mercy Health Partners, and Gary Packingham/Community Health Ventures, Inc.
This session will present successful health initiatives in Dallas County, Texas and Muskegon County, Michigan that address the health needs of individuals returning to communities following incarceration. These strategies work with collaborative programs seeking to reduce the rates of recidivism by addressing health needs in conjunction with related social conditions, including job training and placement, housing, and transportation. Reducing recidivism through community wrap-around services can build an environment in which policy makers can address the problems related to correctional health, including diversion programs for mental health, drug courts, and enhanced community corrections programs.
The saliency of this issue is best understood when you consider that currently, the United States leads all other countries in the number of people incarcerated with over two million. And surprisingly, incarcerated persons are the only category of U.S. citizens with a Constitutional right to health care. However, once these individuals return to their communities, they frequently face difficult barriers in accessing health care and end up in one of two places: the hospital ER or re-incarcerated. Together, the Texas and Michigan examples will demonstrate how an integrated use of community resources can be successful in addressing the needs of two distinct incarcerated populations presenting different challenges for linking them to services and treating chronic disease.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) discuss opportunities for community health professionals to take leadership roles in correctional health; 2) understand appropriate intervention strategies for prison versus jail populations; 3) address social determinants of health for the incarcerated population and their families; and 4) understand strategies for partnership development.
Designed for Disease: The Link between Local Food Environments, Obesity, and Diabetes
Rajni Banthia/PolicyLink
This presentation will highlight promising environmental and policy strategies, emerging opportunities, and successful efforts to promote healthy food access around the country, with resulting health status improvement for large numbers of people. It also will examine the relationships between retail food environments, obesity and diabetes, and community income, based on a study of the California Health Interview Survey, US Census data, and food retail business information conducted by PolicyLink, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. By improving community environments, we can improve community health. Data and experience indicate that those who live near an abundance of fast-food restaurants and convenience stores, compared to grocery stores and fresh produce vendors, have a significantly higher prevalence of obesity and diabetes. The highest rates of obesity and diabetes were found among people who live in lower-income communities and have worse food environments. Taking steps to reverse obesity and diabetes trends requires a range of interventions, including a systematic approach to improving local food environments.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) discuss the relationship between the food environment and adult obesity; 2) describe differences in dietary behaviors among California adults living in different types of food environments; and 3) identify socio-demographic characteristics associated with different types of food environments.
Towards Healthy Communities and a Healthy Environment: Working at the Nexus of Community Health and Environmental Stewardship
Kathy Gerwig and Loel Solomon/Kaiser Permanente, and Gary Cohen/Healthcare Without Harm
This session will describe an integrated and comprehensive approach to community benefit that incorporates both environmental stewardship and community health. Community health leaders, environmentalists and healthcare executives are beginning to develop, frame and implement an emerging set of healthy community strategies at the nexus of environmental stewardship and public health. This work is driven by growing international attention to climate change, the increasing prominence of community health strategies that address environmental sustainability and chronic disease prevention, and new IRS reporting guidelines.
First, panelists will describe the forces leading to increased attention to this approach. Second, the session will identify and describe strategies including: 1) land use and transportation decisions; 2) policies and practices related to hospital and community food systems; 3) chemical policies that “make the market” for less toxic hospital environments; and 4) strategies that reduce hospitals’ ecological footprint. Third, the session will describe examples of successful environmental stewardship programs that are effectively integrated into hospital Community Benefit and Corporate Social Responsibility strategies, and include leadership engagement, governance mechanisms and measurement, and evaluation systems.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) describe the ways in which environmental stewardship efforts can fit into a comprehensive hospital community benefit program; 2) identify intervention strategies that address both environmental sustainability and community health goals; and 3) connect to initiatives and organizations that can serve as resources for coordinated environmental health/community health initiatives.
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Building the Skills of Community Health Leaders
Community Benefit and Health Workforce Diversity
Kevin Barnett/Public Health Institute
This session will share key findings, recommendations, and lessons from the Connecting the Dots Initiative, a comprehensive statewide approach to increasing health professions workforce diversity.
Non-profit hospitals can and should play a central role in the development of local and regional diversity strategies, applying their influence to more deeply engage health professions education institutions (HPEIs), working to expand the pipeline of under-represented youth with interest, knowledge, and support for entering the health professions, and advocating in the policy arena for K-12 reforms and other actions that advance the health professions diversity agenda.
The session will focus on selected practical recommendations, with particular attention to expanded roles for health professions, employers and community stakeholders, as well as internal hospital coordination between community benefit and human resource functions. The presenter will share specific examples to illustrate recommendations, and will facilitate a discussion of possible solutions to specific challenges identified by participants in their own communities, regions, and institutions.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will have increased knowledge of: 1) issues, challenges, and opportunities to increase health professions workforce diversity (HPWD) at all stages of the educational pipeline; 2) levers to facilitate meaningful engagement of academic institutions and health professions employers; and 3) strategies non-profit hospitals can use to frame the issues to engage leadership.
Engaging the Un-Usual Suspects as Community Health Leaders
Steve Wenger/Heartland Health and Suzanne Alewine/Community Asset Builders, LLC
St. Joseph, Missouri has engaged in an on-going process of assessment, program development and evaluation to improve the health of target populations for 15 years. The approach has always incorporated more than a data review; although data is a key cornerstone. The primary partners have been individuals and organizations with direct ties to ‘health’ in the traditional sense. The release of the PBS documentary Unnatural Causes in the spring of 2008 led our group to a new discussion about the seriousness of the issues facing our community, and what could be done to achieve a healthier, active, more livable community.
In July 2008, the ‘un-usual suspects’ were assembled, and a new conversation began. The not-so-simple challenge: Getting leaders to recognize how dependent health improvement is on our collective systems, and to create a local agenda for change. Our goal was to develop a new leadership imperative, which required creating an awakening to a set of ideas. We will discuss identifying ‘un-usual suspects’, how to assemble them in the participants community, and demonstrate the environment created to encourage dialogue. Now, the ‘un-usual suspects’ are set to take leadership in three areas that form the new cornerstone for our health improvement efforts: 1) Built Environment; 2) Social Determinants of Health; and 3) Chronic Disease and Healthy Lifestyles.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) list critical success factors and discuss their importance to the success of health improvement initiatives; 2) apply quality principles to their community health work; including the virtues and shortcomings of segmented markets; 3) identify the ‘un-usual’ suspects (leaders) in their own community; and 4) appreciate how dependent health improvement is on other community systems, and the impact non-traditional leadership can have on health status.
Public Health and Health Care Integration for Achieving a High Performing Health System: A Case Study
George B. Hernandez and Jean R. Setzer/University Health System
The theme of this interactive session is to understand the benefits and barriers to collaboration between urban public hospitals and local health departments. With the intention of becoming a high performing health system based on the Commonwealth Fund's Commission on a High Performing Health System, the ten preventive health clinics of the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (local health department) merged into the Bexar County Hospital District (d/b/a The University Health System).
Expected benefits include health system efficiency, quality of services, improved continuity of care, and access to public health and individual healthcare services. This presentation will use the first full year of implementation as the context in which to facilitate a dialogue on the barriers and strategies to successful integration of preventive health practices into a large, complex, public health care system. Emphasis will be on understanding the cultural, regulatory, statutory, and operation (including information technology) issues confronted to assure measurable community benefit.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) understand the benefits of strategic alliances between public hospitals and local health departments; 2) discuss the benefits and challenges of collaboration as a strategy for community health improvement; and 3) describe the legal, operational, regulatory, and cultural issues to integration and organizational approaches to overcoming them.
Mass. Partnership for Healthy Communities: Six Years of Success in Growing More than 400 Community Leaders across 37 Communities
Peter Lee, Steve Ridini and Susan Downey/The Medical Foundation, and Cathy O'Connor/Mass. Office of Healthy Communities
The Massachusetts Partnership for Healthy Communities (MPHC), a program of The Medical Foundation, Inc., funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) has completed six annual sessions of a nine month long health improvement training institute. This institute trains teams of leaders from municipal government, residents, hospitals, public health organizations, foundations, businesses and community development corporations (among others) from across the Commonwealth. Called the MassForum for Creating Healthier Communities, the institute has "grown" over 400 community health improvement leaders in 37 communities, covering over 1.5 million people.
Successes range from new working relationships at the community level, improved collaborations, increased funding as a result of new power relationships, to broad-based community mobilization at the neighborhood level with efforts in substance abuse prevention, youth development, obesity prevention and reduction, and more. The training focuses on key skills development, as well as developing a common language between the various sectors. The session will share components of the training curriculum, seven characteristics of a healthy community, and critical lessons for replication.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) reconstruct or adapt the MA Forum for Creating Healthier Communities training model and curriculum for their own communities; 2) recognize key indicators of healthy community mobilization success; and 3) state seven characteristics of a healthy community.
Return on Community Investment (ROCI): A Model and its Application to a Healthcare Access Program
Josh Brinkley/Ascension Health and Cynthia Taueg/St. John Health
This session will introduce a return on community investment (ROCI) model created by Ascension Health to help demonstrate the value of health access programs operated in conjunction with collaborative local healthcare access organizations. In Ascension’s case, each partner collaborative organization is uniquely designed based on community needs, leading to variability in the design and the function of each access program. While the staffs of these access programs focus on optimizing day-to-day operations, Ascension Health has committed an access program support team. One role of the Ascension support team is to develop an ROCI model that provides stakeholders with financial benefit information based on their programs.
The model’s development will be discussed in detail, including the research methods, stakeholder identification, benefit calculations, and final presentation of the analysis. To bring it home, presenters will also share a specific case example of the ROCI methodology in action, presented by Detroit-based St. John Health, a member of Ascension Health.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) discuss the goals of a return on community investment (ROCI) analysis; 2) learn to develop and apply return on community investment (ROCI) methodology and calculations; and 3) create a return on community investment (ROCI) story for their local stakeholders.
South Los Angeles Community Health Leadership and Training Program: A Community Success Story
Nancy Watson/Community Health Councils, and Jennifer Ito/SCOPE
The Community Health Leadership and Training Program was developed through a collaboration of three community-based organizations in 2006 with the goal of creating a cadre of residents from South Los Angeles trained in health policy and advocacy. The program, a series of three-hour sessions developed and taught by the partners and by other experts at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, was designed to provide knowledge and skills for effective health policy leadership by individuals and organizations working to eliminate racial health disparities and improve the quality of life in South Los Angeles.
The aim of the course is to give students practical skills they can use in engaging the healthcare policy arena either at existing health organizations where they are employed or through new employment opportunities. These skills include community organizing, leading meetings, and conducting presentations. Analysis of the overall final course and the six-month follow-up evaluation and conclusions will be shared. This course will be the first class of a Health Certificate Program through Trade-Technical College that is hoped to establish additional opportunities for today and tomorrow’s leaders.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) identify at least two characteristics of an effective community health leadership training program; 2) identify at least one strategy for sustaining a community health leadership program; and 3) replicate an effective evaluation plan for measuring results of community health leadership training programs.
Using Games to Translate Knowledge to Action in Chronic Disease Prevention Programs
Lisa Ulmer/Drexel University
The magnitude of cancer, the stark disparities in mortality for racial minorities and rural populations, and the national call to remove barriers to prevention, early detection and treatment, challenge us to collaborate across cultures and disciplines to transform the system of care into a prevention-oriented, culturally competent system for all.
This interactive breakout session will develop knowledge and skills in cognitive science, discuss approaches for blending cognitive science with health communication methods, practice developing health games as culminating tools for health education sessions, and plan for developing health games in the participants’ setting. The breakout session includes: evidence supporting the use of health games; major principles to guide game design; and practice developing storyboards for a game. Teaching methods include presentation, discussion, case studies, applied group work, and reflective work.
At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to: 1) understand the rationale for using health games in chronic disease prevention programs; 2) understand major principles from cognitive science which are critical for game design, and to apply cognitive science principles in game design; 3) enhance game design with mechanisms of action drawn from health communication theory; and 4) begin planning to develop games in one’s own chronic disease prevention programs.
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