By LILAH LOHR
PHILADELPHIA — It was probably their vow to stick together and keep meeting that turned partners in a 2010 Corpus Christi, Texas, community needs assessment initiative into a play book for collaboration.
CHRISTUS Spohn Health System, Corpus Christi Medical Center and Driscoll Children's Hospital began meeting in late 2009 to define what they were going to do in preparation for the 2010 community needs assessment, said Pamela S. Meyer, Regents Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M University — Corpus Christi. The three have since formalized their collaboration as the Coastal Bend Community Health Needs Task Force, expanded it to include additional organizations and committed to continuing to work together in the future to define and address community needs.
It was a notable achievement for the health systems to share two years of hospital use data, said Meyer, a panelist at the Catholic Health Assembly Innovation Forum presentation, "Community Needs Assessment Leads to Collaborations that Heal." Their merged data captured from September 2007 through August 2009, plus information gathered from public records, multiple survey techniques and data from focus groups and key stakeholders made it possible to deeply analyze information for the population of 573,000 residents in 15 Texas counties.
Some of the findings:
- 2 out of 3 people in the catchment area are overweight or obese.
- Pneumonia and heart failure are the most common primary diagnoses for hospital patients. Approximately 60 percent of white male and white female patients over the age of 65 are admitted with pneumonia.
- A significant number of residents lack medical homes.
- Many in the community don't know what health services are available to them.
Panelist Eddie Read, vice president of finance at Driscoll Children's Hospital, said the group's continuity has allowed it to branch out and welcome representatives who touch a broad cross spectrum of the community. The local school district, two county health departments, the Nueces County Medical Society, Nueces County social workers, hospice and the United Way all participate in the Coastal Bend Community Health Needs Task Force.
Some of the first needs the group has addressed are educational — developing resources to help educate residents about health services that are available to them, and how to gain access; increasing the number of residents with medical homes; and setting up education, screening and vaccination programs to reduce the incidence of pneumonia among the population.
Looking ahead to autumn, the group has planned asthma screening as a community-wide project, Read said.
Brian P. Smith, vice president of mission integration for CHRISTUS Spohn Health System, said including a wide range of community groups in the partnership makes it possible to tackle expanded modes of care delivery and to take advantage of state grant programs. Inclusiveness is now part of the needs task force's core operating strategy.
"We know a lot of small groups can't afford to do their own community needs assessments and are using ours," Smith said. "Why not approach them to be part of the next one?"
Their ongoing and growing, community-wide partnership permits the Corpus Christi group to strategically and systematically address community health problems such as the incidence of pneumonia among seniors. As a result, panelists said, they hope to see some positive changes on health status indicators in the 2013 community needs assessment.
"It really is all our jobs (to address community health needs), and that's the beauty of all this," said Meyer.
Copyright © 2012 by the Catholic Health Association
of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby
or call (314) 253-3477.