Supporting Alignment and Accountability in Community Health Improvement: The Development and Piloting of a Regional Data-Sharing System

The purpose of this project is to develop and field test a set of online tools that support the comparative review of specific elements of publicly available reports from tax exempt hospitals, local health departments, and other local community-based organizations.  The online tools comprise what is referred to in this report as a Community Health Improvement Data Sharing System (CHIDSS).  The project builds on a three-year series of convenings and inquiry focusing on the improvement of community health improvement practices.  The projects have been implemented by the Public Health Institute in collaboration with the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with focus on the improvement of community health improvement practices.

The focus of this project and the tools and templates that have been developed is on the assessment, planning, and implementation processes by hospitals, local health departments, United Way organizations, Community Action Agencies, community health centers, and a broader spectrum of stakeholders in the community health improvement process.  The intent and the opportunity is to leverage the transparency provided by the new reporting mechanisms for tax-exempt hospitals, and to encourage the full spectrum of stakeholders to ask questions and provide voluntary leadership that will directly contribute to the advancement of practices.

The CHIDSS tools are intended for use by a broad spectrum of potential users, including a) organizations engaged in assessment and planning, b) community stakeholders who seek engagement in community health improvement processes, c) private sector agencies at the city, county, and state level with oversight interests, d) academic institutions and research organizations with an interest in the advancement of knowledge, and e) media organizations interested in community health improvement and the contributions of institutional stakeholders.

Read the report.

About the templates:

The three CHIDSS templates are designed to provide forms intended to facilitate local or regional efforts to capture and identify data/information that can inform dialogue amongst various community stakeholders.

• The user’s guide provides instructions as to how to document information from public reports information into the CHI DSS templates. Download the user’s guide. 
• The community definition template allows a user to capture information from a public report regarding how an entity has defined the geographic parameters of its community as well the identification of concentrations of disparities. Download the community definition template.
• The community engagement template allows a user to capture the sources and forms of input as well as the degree to which the entity engaged local stakeholder organizations in the needs assessment process and planning/programming of the implementation strategy. Download the community engagement template.
• The priority setting process template allows a user to document the types of criteria used in the priority setting process as well as the content/geo focus of the implementation strategy. Download the priority setting process template.

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