Author: Matt Richardson, DrPH

Research: Basis for All Good Decision Making

A community health needs assessment should always start with good data.
Image by Linkfluence

As you might remember from our previous blog post, we’re focusing on AscentHealth Consulting’s three main values this month:

1. Research is the basis for all good decision making and strategy.

2. Every community is unique and has opportunities to become a much healthier place.

3. Prevention is the most powerful concept for improving community health.

Today, we’re going dive into our first value, that research is the basis for all good decision making and strategy.  Mary’s background in leading healthcare marketing and strategy for major hospitals and my background leading public health efforts for cities have led us both to understanding the importance of research through the decision-making process.

Here’s the thing: you have to ask questions, early and often, of the people who know the answers. Community thought leaders know the resources, barriers, recent successes, and existing efforts in community health improvement. You simply have to know who these people are, ask them about recent events or near-future planning, and compile this information. Sounds simple, right? It is—and it isn’t.

From our experience, this is one of the biggest values that comes with a community health needs assessment (CHNA). CHNAs dive into a variety of trends and directly study the needs and goals of your specific community. This research becomes invaluable later as you develop a strategic plan for improving the health of your community. Without this research, it can be much more difficult — if not impossible — to allocate your budget in the ways that will help your community the most.

This is why research is always the first step of a needs assessment from AscentHealth. We investigate demographics and health statistics, perform in-depth interviews with small groups and individuals to better understand their needs and find the facts that will help you make the best decisions for your community.

Ready to get started on your community health needs assessment? Contact us today.

Start with the End in Mind–What Tools Do You Need?

A Community Health Needs Assessment is the tool that leads your healthcare organization to make decisions based on facts.

If you want to accomplish something and propel your organization forward, you have to envision it. Granted, this isn’t news to anyone reading this blog. After all, most people interested in healthcare consulting services know what they need, right?

But let’s review the basics because repetition is the mother of mastery. First, we acknowledge we need data. Next, we need to build a team. Now, it’s time to talk about what the team needs to choose.

The “end” in this case is a tool, instrument or roadmap that leads your healthcare organization to make decisions based on facts. Evidence-based strategic planning is important, but you have to design your assessment process in such a way that you achieve your goal.

Let’s take a practical example: buying a car. How do we choose a vehicle out of thousands of options? Well, we have a few criteria:
• Capacity (seats for just you or you and all of the neighborhood 12-year-olds?)
• Fuel economy (can you actually afford to run this thing?)
• Features (how much whiz-bang stuff do you need vs. want?)
• Cost (oh, can we afford this?)
• Status (what does this minivan “say” about me? What do I want people to think?)

If you think this is a silly example, keep reading.

Your community health needs assessment (CHNA) must fit your needs. Are you a hospital needing to satisfy the IRS 990 Schedule H requirement to conduct a CHNA? Are you a non-profit? As a healthcare organization, what types of decisions do you want a CHNA to guide you through? Is it a “one time” document or will it be structured for updates and revisions?How many questions will you ask/answer and what types of information will it cover? Will it be quantitative or qualitative? Will it be used by a limited number of people and organizations or will you actively encourage others in your community to mine its riches? Do you want to use secondary data to save money or do you want a more comprehensive primary data project?

These are the questions that will help you clarify your needs for a final product. And once you decide, it’s time to make it happen. The good news: now the end is in sight!

If you are interested in discussing how a Community Health Needs Assessment and related planning activities can help your organization make a greater impact, please contact Mary Coyne at (806) 670-7440 or Mary@AscentHealthConsulting.com

Short-Term Teambuilding: Think Olympics, Not the NFL

Your needs assessment will be set for success when you choose the right team to start the process.
Photo: Jean-Michel BAUD

You’ve done it. You’ve convinced the people you need to convince that it’s time for a Community Health Assessment process. Someone is going to invest in the project—maybe the taxpayers, maybe hospitals, maybe the local philanthropic foundation—but someone, somewhere agrees with you because of your deliberate advocacy and persuasive arguments. Now it’s time to build the team.

This part can be very cliché or chocked with bureaucratese. Don’t let it be trite or wordy. Don’t lose yourself or others in “collaboration” discussions for hours. Time for precision and accuracy. Cogent, concise, to the point. You need to recruit decision makers and experts for a finite period of time. Once you do that, it’s time to get to work. In fact, try these steps:

• Plan for three meetings for 90 minutes each, around lunch

• Recruit the following participants:
– United Way
– Local Hospital administrators or COOs (must be decision makers)
– Local university social sciences, biostats, or public health professor
– City and County officials
– Local health department
– School superintendent
– Largest employer management representative (not the ISD or hospital)
– State health department
– Local workforce expert
– Local clergy alliance representative
– Largest local volunteer association
– Social service club representatives

• Have no more than 15 people on the committee

Plan to conduct your three meetings in an open and collaborative fashion, but be a slave to the clock. You MUST accomplish your action items and respect everyone’s time.

Here is the overall objective: build a team to do this specific work. These are not the same people you would choose to run a hospital or school. You aren’t working through a church retreat planning session. You are not building a football team with a quarterback for an entire season. You are choosing an Olympic team representing the best and most knowledgeable people possible to come together and contribute for one project and product. You want specialists with the clear understanding and expectation that this is a short-term commitment with long-term effects. Yes, more projects and momentum may come from this work. But be clear: we just need YOU! for three lunch meetings to make decisions based on your experience.

With that kind of focus, dedication and skill, you just might win a medal, stand on the podium and make a measurable difference.

If you are interested in discussing how a Community Health Needs Assessment and related planning activities can help your organization make a greater impact, please contact Mary Coyne at (806) 670-7440 or Mary@AscentHealthConsulting.com

Let’s Begin at the Beginning…

Your first mission, should you chose to accept it, is to cultivate and grow your own heroes.

We’re going to start at the start of things. If you are considering a strategic process for a Community Health Needs Assessment, there has to be a place to begin the journey. And it’s not where you think. No, it’s not with the statistician. Not the focus group. Not the committee meeting. It’s earlier than that.

The beginning of the journey is “buy-in.” Literally and figuratively. The decision makers must realize, recognize and agree on the value of this idea. This isn’t just a box to check on an IRS form: this must be strategic and transformational. This assessment process absolutely must get to the heart of the community’s needs. No foolin’, no sugar-coating, no hurt feelings. Politics must take a break.

Now, anyone reading that last sentence who is a leader of an organization for longer than 10 minutes will say: WRONG! You can’t ignore politics and the context of healthcare organizations in our town/city/community. The “other” hospital is doing “X” and we just started services with “Y” to compete. Or: the mayor started this “movement” and the city is behind her—we have to go along. You know all of the examples…people have already started on something and we can’t look too closely and change directions to waste money.

The beginning, the starting conversation, the headwaters of this journey have to be data-driven. Everyone has to agree that priorities must be defined by the trends assessed and that resources must be given to those priorities. The buy-in argument is simple: priorities must be addressed. They can be “in addition to” the existing efforts, projects, programs and ideas that are already being pursued. These priorities can be added, but everyone must agree that they can’t be ignored.

There will be time (we’ll discuss at a later date) for the next steps. But do not ignore the importance of the process and the champions it will take to make it happen. Your first mission, should you chose to accept it, is to cultivate and grow your own heroes.

An example would be my first political foray into community health assessments. A CHNA had not been performed in eight years in my jurisdiction as a health officer, and I knew it needed to happen. So, what did I do?

• I met with community leaders to describe what had been done in the past
• Talked about the “needs” that others were discussing across town, yet no one had focused efforts
• Advocated and proposed a budget item (one year in advance)
• Presented a proposal with action items for a contract and contractor
• Managed the process with transparency and community input
• Provided the political boards and organizations with opportunities to publicly discuss the process and take ownership for the leadership and foresight
• Facilitated follow-up meetings
• Formalized plans for subsequent CHNAs

Sounds simple, right? We’ve all heard about strategic decisions and the importance of champion development. Few organizations, however, take the time to get consensus and energy at the beginning. And as the process moves forward, you’ll be glad you put in the hard work to grow these local heroes.

So, grab a cape and a mask and sell the idea. You’ll need help to save the world.

If you are interested in discussing how a Community Health Needs Assessment and related planning activities can help your organization make a greater impact, please contact Mary Coyne at (806) 670-7440 or Mary@AscentHealthConsulting.com

Information Matters!

CDC/ Mary Hilpertshauser

If we read Facebook and news outlets, we see lots of opinions on different topics: vaccine dangers to cancer treatments to medical marijuana to food-borne illnesses. So many people with so many opinions and it’s all out there for consumption. Our collective liberties and freedoms allow these expressions (as well they should), but do we ever stop to consider the importance of scientific data and trends? As business leaders, do we consider our decisions based on facts and demonstrable, repeatable science, or do we allow our personal opinions (and others’ opinions) to inform our strategic focus?

Whether you direct a health care organization, non-profit, private venture or serve as a volunteer–information and data matter. Decisions should be made and defended with recognized, industry standards of information in the form of national surveys, state health trends and data clearinghouses that all provide the same thing: clear community needs through assessment and analysis. We owe it to our patients, citizens, employees, coworkers, neighbors, friends and family to base our future pursuits with valid facts and avoid conjecture, rhetoric or pop culture. Vaccination is a great example. Many people have read anecdotal articles regarding a British study linking autism and the MMR vaccine from 20 years ago. The tragic rise of autism in our country and around the world has left parents searching for answers and finding subjective data and this lone published link. Scientists across the globe have tirelessly searched for confirmation of this link to find…nothing.  Over two dozen studies with hundreds of thousands of participants have been examined to search for a statistical and representative link to autism through routine MMR vaccination. None, to date, exist.

My point is not to preach from a soapbox–the goal is much more important. When examining community health needs and trends, science and data must be the foundation of the pursuit of interventions and solutions. Anecdotal opinion and individual experiences, while sometimes important, cannot replace data derived from the rigors of the scientific method. Decisions on oncology services, teen pregnancy, pertussis outbreaks, STD rates and heart disease in women over 40 cannot be informed by social media or pop culture interviews on late night television. They must be assessed, analyzed and researched to provide tried and true interventions with historical successes.

This is how we improve community health. And make a difference along the way.

If you are interested in discussing how a Community Health Needs Assessment and related planning activities can help your organization make a greater impact, please contact Mary Coyne at (806) 670-7440 or Mary@AscentHealthConsulting.com

Why hire a consulting firm, anyway?

I get this question from friends and associates recently: “what is your consulting firm about, anyway?”

Valid question, and one that begins with a declarative statement: we want to help communities be data-driven when making decisions about health care.  For some people, that might sound like a dull endeavor.  Graphs, trends, surveys, and reports don’t typically excite the senses.  Data, after all, is not my favorite part of the process.  Statistics, while necessary, are not the definition of occupational bliss.  Let’s face it: very few people enjoy the research that is required to be informed.  It takes time and work to drill down to the important parts of a community’s health status, then use that information to drive the “next”.

A great example is a dinner party.  Sweeping the porch, buying groceries, cutting vegetables and dirty dishes are not the best part.  The fun, the satisfaction, comes from bringing friends to the table to enjoy a special meal and share companionship.  While you might not think that community health needs assessments are similar to dinner parties, I promise both take work and preparation.  Both are also always worth the effort.  And when done well, people take notice.  And they appreciate your dedication.  They might even come back—to your party—or to your business/organization where you are providing a needed service.

We want to work hard for you.  Because it’s worth it.  Because we like the finished product and the outcome: making a difference in community health.  I tell people all the time: my passion is moving the needle.  Positive, timely change is a good thing.  What are we about?  Positive change through knowledge.

AscentHealth wants to guide you to make better strategic decisions.  Because we’re passionate about positive change.  Let us move the needle for you.

If you are interested in discussing how a Community Health Needs Assessment and related planning activities can help your organization make a greater impact, please contact Mary Coyne at (806) 670-7440 or Mary@AscentHealthConsulting.com