Kansas City Health Commission

Mapping The Way To A High Performing Public Health System

Presented by:Cynthia Davis

Kansas City Health DepartmentMay 9, 2006

Presentation Overview

1. Why conduct assessment?2. Benefits of conducting

assessment3. The starting point4. Assessment sessions process5. Assessment completed

Continued

6. Data Driven: Improving the local public health system’s performance

7. Reporting back to the community

8. Closing comments

Local Public Health System Assessment

Route 4

Why Route 4

To get a glimpse of what the local public health system might look like

Monitor the local public health system and identify weaknesses to make improvements

Gather baseline data to measure improvements

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To raise provider and community awareness about the local public health system vs. individual agency

To begin dialoguing about the local public health system and its performance

Benefits of Taking Route 4

Learn what essential services of public health other agencies are providing, including how and to whom

Opportunity to partner/collaborate on efforts to solve public health problem/issues (systemic approach)

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Sense of community health approach vs. public health agency

Change in mental model: traditional public health system vs. broaden inclusion of all stakeholders

ETC. Specific to individual communities

Starting Point

Convened a meeting inviting all Health Commissioners, members of its 3 committees, and selected health department staff - approximately 70 invites.

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Meeting Results Grouped essential service numbers:

1 and 2 3, 4, and 5 8, 9, and 10

Identified essential service area co-leaders (5 sets of co-leaders)

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Second Series of Meetings (5)Co-leaders, health commission committee co-chairs, and selected health department staff identified appropriate agencies to invite to their respective essential service assessment session

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Meeting Results: Ninety five agencies were identified across the collective 10 public health essential services

Invite letters were mailed, with corresponding LPHSA essential service section instrument

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Follow-up phone calls to every single agency, which resulted in forty-eight agencies across sectors participated. A total of 53 individuals.

Assessment Sessions Process

Co-leaders facilitated their respective sessions

Explained the big picture – MAPP and the end product: Community Health Improvement Plan

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Clarified definition of local public health system (NACCHO)

Explained Assessment instrument’s structure and concepts

Explained group dialogue and decision making (voting) process

1. Each participant quietly read the essential service indicator and model standard

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2. The facilitator read the question to the group of participants and they dialogued for the answer: yes/ high partially/low partially/no

3. When the group felt ready, they voted;Tie/close votes led to another dialogue, than another vote. A recorder darkened the answer box from the assessment tool

4. The facilitator moved to the next question and repeated the process

Assessment Completed

Data Entry and Results Recorder spent approximately 5 hours entering data (answers)into CDC’s program

CDC generated a report within two weeks

Data Driven: Improving the LPHS

Performance

MAPP leaders sensed what essential service areas were the lowest – CDC results confirmed.

Integrated strategies for improving the two lowest scores, into the Community Health Improvement Plan. And to a lesser extent the third lowest score.

Reporting Back to the Community

Conference to report LPHSA results, May 12.

Conference Breakout Sessions (4) One for each of the essential services

that were the lowest 3. One for essential service # 2:

diagnose and investigate health problems and health hazards in the community – however, not the fourth lowest.

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Breakout Sessions Purpose Develop interventions for the 3

lowest scoring essential services, plus essential service number # 2.

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Breakout Sessions Methodology Essential Service 7 CDC’s healthy people in healthy

places (environment) health protection goals

Select 3 of the 7 and determine how to improve the essential service in the selected environments

Closing Comments

Participant recruitment occurred during thesummer months and assessment conducted in August – presented availability challenges

Mail invite letters at least five weeks before date assessment is to be conducted

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Off and on mental model block between individual agency performance and system performance

Two separate sessions for essential

service # 3: one for providers the other for the community

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The creation of colored flags for participants to raise when voting made a tedious and long process bearable and even from time to time fun

The collective 5 essential services assessment session took approximately 30 hours

The End