The Community Health Assessment Toolkit

The Community Health Assessment Toolkit, as described by the Association for Community Health Improvement (2017) provides a 9-step assessment tool, which is centered around community engagement. The system is legal for non-profit hospitals. Using the model, a hospital or a health center can derive important benefits. First, the model ensures that there is constant use of valid and updated information since the model is used once every three years. In a three-year cycle, community needs might have changed and this requires a fresh assessment of the needs, as well as, strategizing how such needs will be addressed. The other benefit of the system is that it ensures that, a health organization’s efforts are focused around the community health improvement, and provides a structure for addressing the factors that determine health in a specific community as explained by Catholic Health Association of the United States (2015).

The major agencies in the implementation of the model include the community, the health organization, and government agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The community, from the perspective of the model, provides its needs during the assessment. As such, its collaboration is critical. The second agency in the model is the health organization, which coordinates the entire process of identifying community health needs, and goes further to strategize how to address the needs, and finally implement the strategy. The last agency in the model is the IRS. The IRS provides a guideline of how non-profit making hospitals should interact and roll out the model, making it the regulatory authority. A public nurse has an active role in the model. Such a nurse is the ultimate implementing individual of the model. It is the nurse to conduct the community health assessment, develop a strategy, and see to it that the intended outcomes of the model are achieved.

References

Association for Community Health Improvement. (2017). Community Health Assessment Toolkit. Accessed at www.healthycommunities.org/assesstoolkit

Catholic Health Association of the United States. (2015). Assessing and addressing community health needs. Retrieved from https://www.chausa.org/communitybenefit/assessing-and-addressing-community-health-needs