COMMUNITY HEALTH NEEDS ASSESSMENT PLAN
By Edwin Amuga
Executive summary
Community health needs assessment is local, state, tribal or territorial valuation identifying the key health issues and needs by a systematic, comprehensive collection of data and analysis. A community health assessment can be defined as a systematic health status indicators examination for a given population used in the community key problem and assets identification (Cherry, Robinson, Jashinsky, Bagwell-Adams, Elliot & Davis, 2017). The main goal of the assessment is strategy development to address issues and needs that have been identified. A community health improvement plan systematically addresses problems based on the assessment and improvement process of the health of the community. The plan is essential for the development of policies and the definition of actions aimed at promoting health. It also defines the community health visions using a collaborative process and addresses community strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities gamut to improve health status (Gale, John & DuMont, 2015).
Principles and concepts
Community health assessment principles and concepts include multi-sector collaboration to underpin the shared ownership of improvement of community health such as assessment, planning, investment, implementation and evaluation, community engagement for results improvement, maximum transparency for the improvement of accountability and community engagement, using evidence-based intervention and innovative practices encouragement by evaluation that informs continuous process for improvement, use of highest data quality and definition of a community to allow for interventions and measurable results.
The assessment uses a holistic health model in emphasizing social, economic, and cultural factors around the health and behaviors of an individual in a community. The concepts of ‘health’ and ‘need’ are used with the ‘need’ as a concept incorporating the felt and expressed needs of the locals and their capacity to benefit from public and healthcare programmes. The factors include the physical (air and drinking water quality) and social (friend and family emotional support) environments, poverty, lifestyle and behavior, and family genetics and individual biology (Giger, 2016). The assessment involves the community, public health partners, and other professionals and agencies in developing local health needs assessments and plans. This together with the identification of needs, measures and resources will help partners to establish priorities, interventions and directing of resources for community health improvement. It also has to observe requirements for federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and internal revenue service final regulations and approved by the healthcare organization according to federal laws.
The community served
The assessment identifies and defines a community it aims to assess its health needs in terms of its demographics, patient localities by distribution, and local hospital inpatient admissions.
Data collection methods and process methodology
The assessment is founded on secondary and primary sources for data. Primary data collection is conducted by assessors themselves to address questions that secondary data fail to answer for a better understanding of the issues at hand. The methods of data collection include questionnaires, case studies, interviews, observation, and focus groups. Data collection starts with a review of secondary sources and local sources to identify gaps, and the search is then broadened with a focus on data quality.
The primary data collection survey includes questions tailored to fit relevance in the community and proving the respondents with the opportunity to voluntarily participate in focus group sessions to help validate the results of the survey. The Kappa score was used in the measurement of reliability while validity measurement was done through sensitivity, positive predictive values, and specificity (Giger, 2016).
Secondary data that is done before the primary data collection includes local, state, and national demographic and community health databases, utilization data and asset maps, and shared results by partners from respective community health assessment action agencies.
The healthcare organization, the community health assessors, professional bodies and partners team up to review data and prioritize the health needs of a community across the system. The partners help the assessors with the necessary information to define the hospital service area, identify health study indicators and summarized demographic data and community conversations data. A collaboration of the healthcare organization and local public health department helps in the assessment methods, community input and summary reports development and implementation to guide prioritization.
Prioritized needs
The healthcare organization, the community health assessors, professional bodies and partners meet to review data and prioritize the health needs of a community across the system. The prioritization of the community health needs is informed by modifying Hanlon method together with other common methods of needs utilization (Gale, John & DuMont, 2015). Every partner shares their priority topic areas and rationale based on size, seriousness, equity, value, and change. The partners and, professionals facilitate small and large group process to arrive at a consensus on top priority issues of equal importance using the modified Hanlon method among others and community input data.
There is a need for continued and collaborative work with the community in the development and shared goals and actions to be presented in the implementation strategy and plans. The needs are tailored to the programs, resources, priorities, plans, and collaboration with other stakeholders.
References
Cherry, S., Robinson, A., Jashinsky, J., Bagwell-Adams, G., Elliott, M., & Davis, M. (2017). Rural Community Health Needs Assessment Findings: Access to Care and Mental Health. Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences, 11(1), 18.
Gale, M. S., John, A., & DuMont, N. (2015). Following the Needs Assessment: The Challenges of Developing a Meaningful Community Health Improvement Plan.
Giger, J. N. (2016). Transcultural Nursing-E-Book: Assessment and Intervention. Elsevier Health Sciences.
