Sr. Werthman pioneered the use of data to advance community health
In the 1980s when Sr. Linda Werthman, RSM, set out to pinpoint pockets of unmet health needs in communities served by Mercy Health Services, there were no database dashboards to yield the coordinates. The information age was in its infancy.
Sr. Werthman used census and other public data to locate at-risk populations and she developed formats to use that information in community benefit planning. Mercy Health Services was a predecessor to Trinity Health in Michigan and Iowa.
Sr. Werthman encouraged hospital leaders to get out into neighborhoods and talk to people struggling with poverty and related social barriers and let them have a say in setting the health system's outreach priorities. That forged the path for what would follow.
"The modern history of Catholic health care community needs assessment can be traced to Sr. Linda Werthman," said Julie Trocchio, CHA's senior director of community benefit and continuing care.
Sr. Werthman, the 2023 recipient of CHA's Lifetime Achievement Award, influenced the association's work in shaping public policy related to community benefit spending by hospitals and health systems. Sr. Werthman, who holds a doctorate in social policy and planning, was ahead of the crowd too in helping to advance community benefit spending to address food and housing insecurity and promote economic development in disadvantaged neighborhoods.