As part of our accreditation requirements, NVHD must maintain Community Health Assessment (CHA) and a multi-year Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP).
Similarly, Griffin Hospital also must maintain a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) and a CHIP because The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) revised the federal tax-exempt status requirements for nonprofit hospitals. To claim tax-exempt status, community benefit work must be transparent, concrete, measurable, and both responsive and accountable to identified community need. Therefore, at least once every three years, hospitals must conduct a community health needs assessment and adopt an implementation strategy. An implementation strategy for a hospital facility is a written plan that addresses each of the significant community health needs identified through a community health needs assessment. A hospital organization must adopt a separate implementation strategy for each hospital facility it operates.
Collaboration between facilities on community health needs assessment and implementation strategy development is encouraged, and implementation strategies submitted by separate facilities may be substantively similar. This is why NVHD and Griffin Hospital choose to partner on the Valley Index and Community Health Improvement Plan.
Community Health Assessment (CHA)
The Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) requires accredited health departments/districts to assess and monitor population health status, factors that influence health, and community needs and assets.
NVHD must demonstrate “a continuous and systematic approach to monitoring health status; collection, analysis, and dissemination of data; use of data to inform public health policies, processes, and interventions; and participation in a collaborative process for the development of a shared, comprehensive health assessment of the community, its health challenges, and its resources. The collection and analysis of data about the health status of the community informs the identification of health disparities and factors that contribute to them in order to develop strategies to achieve equity.”
PHAB explains the significance of a CHA as being “a resource for all members of the public health system and the population at large. It is a basis for collaborations and for priority setting, planning, program development, funding applications, coordination of resources, and new ways to collaboratively use assets to improve the health of the population. Other governmental units and not-for-profits will use the community health assessment in their planning, program development, and development of funding applications.”
Download a PDF copy of the full 2022 Valley Community Index from CT Data Haven or the Executive Summary from the Valley Community Foundation.
VCF2022_CommunityIndex-10
Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP)
The overall goal of this Community Health Improvement Plan is to address chronic conditions that affect the health of our community. The CHIP outlines key objectives and strategies that address determinants of health and improve health equity. This plan is one of the necessary documents for NVHD’s national accreditation.
The Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) explains the CHIP in the following way: “While the local health department is responsible for protecting and promoting the health of the population, it cannot be effective acting unilaterally. The health department must partner with other sectors and organizations to plan and share responsibility for community health improvement. Other sectors of the community and stakeholders have access to additional data and bring different perspectives that will enhance planning. A collaborative planning process fosters shared ownership and responsibility for the plan’s implementation. The community health improvement process is a vehicle for developing partnerships and for understanding roles and responsibilities.”
- Priority 1: Mental Health
- Priority 2: Substance Use
- Priority 3: Equitable Access to Health Services