Design and the Community Benefits Assessment
Thank you Brock Slabach for posting the link to the Community Health Needs Assessment Toolkit that the National Center for Rural Health Works has prepared. These materials give a good understanding of what is required and provide a pathway to follow to meet those requirements.
The Community Benefit Analysis has the potential of doing more than meeting a federal requirement in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It can create and strengthen a vital community network among the leaders and people of your county. It takes the mission statement of your hospital and organization and makes it a central pillar in the community and establishes direct social and economic relationships between your services and their businesses and homes. It can bring together a unity of mind and purpose for the future of your communities.
This happens because the people of your county may only see your hospital from a needs viewpoint: I need medical help today or I need a job to support my family. They do not see the tangible ways healthcare makes a community 'healthy' through the stability it brings to commerce.
Your vision may also may have faded because of the administrative needs of running the business and making ends meet, and you no longer see the forest because of the trees. The renewed sense of value and purpose that comes from this assessment comes through the relationships with the people of the steering committee. Honest and transparent discussions have a way of developing strength when you can talk about your needs.
The one area of weakness I saw in these materials and this pathway is in the role of the facility. The facility seemed to be left for last, and that the result was a great 'community consciousness' of their health needs and ways to educate and meet those needs. I saw a parallel in raising my three daughters, I wanted all of their social and group activities to be healthy and productive. We, the parents, addressed this by making our home the center of attraction. We wanted everyone to feel comfortable coming and going out of our house, we were the place where it was happening! Continual direct involvement is the best source of influence you can have.
The same is true with the leadership of the hospital in the community. This assessment is absolutely vital in having an honest and clear appraisal of the health concerns and social and economic factors of the world you live in. Developing avenues of communication is just as vital. But if there is no faith and confidence in 'this old house', and you are going down the street to where the party is, you have undermined the social and economic foundations of your community.
How do you use your facility, and make it strong enough to meet the needs of your community? That question is no different than how do you use your body and make it stronger to work and carry out the purposes of your mind. You have to address the age issue, the appearance, the flexibility and adaptibility aspects. Sure I would like a new body, but until then, I got to make this one work, and I know my best days are ahead! How do I do it? How do you increase the direct continual involvement of your community with your facility? Part of the answer to this is not everything is about 'your business' of providing healthcare.
A facility is to give expression to a purpose, or another purpose... or even a different purpose. What do you have in your facility that can be expressed in different ways?
This article was prepared by:
Steve Moore, AIA
Director of Healthcare
Gastinger Walker Harden Architects
smoore@designwithinsight.com