2009 Model Practice Application (Public)

Williams Community Health Profile

Coconino County Health Department

Widely distribute the Williams CHP by posting it on CCHD website (at www.coconino.az.gov/health/communityhealthprofile); distribute hard copies to Williams stakeholders who participated in the process, CCHD Senior Management Team, County Board of Supervisors, and County Manager; encourage use of the Williams CHP in collaborating with partner agencies to secure grants, develop policies, and enhance health care service delivery.

Standard: engage the community to identify and solve health problems. Focus: community planning process engaging systems partners. Indicators: LHD has community health planning structure in place, including partners; the planning team uses CHA to inform selection of priorities; the performance of the PH system is assessed (in relationship to targets); strategies and best practices are selected to increase potential for success. The Williams CHP emerged from an examination of CCHD’s capacity to engage its communities to identify and solve health problems. This was a standard within NACCHO’s Operational Definition Prototype Metrics Assessment Tool that CCHD used to conduct a self-assessement, toward accreditation preparation. We focused upon implementing a Community Planning Process to Engage Systems Partners (in Williams) through the four indicators listed above (again, within NACCHO’s Operational Definition Prototype Metrics Assessment Tool). Organized by the four indicators listed above. Indicator: LHD has community health planning structure in place, including partners. How we addressed it: CCHD has a strategic plan, Healthy Coconino 2012, in place; however, this project more directly engaged partners in Williams and CCHD staff who provide services to them. Indicator: The planning team uses CHA to inform selection of priorities. How we addressed it: Our new Williams Community Health Profile (CHP) was professionally finished by a graphic designer, and features photographs and insight from the local community and key health status indicator data (such as how Williams is doing in relation to meeting Healthy People 2010 targets); furthermore, it highlights priority areas-of-interest that were reached by consensus through a workshop between CCHD and Williams stakeholders. Indicator: The performance of the PH system is assessed (in relationship to targets). How we addressed it: A professional evaluation consultant, Planning and Public Health (PPH) Partners, was hired to examine the relationships between CCHD programs offered to Williams (like how consistently they are offered, as well as utilization rates by the community, community-expressed health care needs and desires, and data-defined opportunities for intervention. Indicator: Strategies and best practices are selected to increase potential for success. How we addressed it: Collaborative strategies, between the community of Williams and CCHD, emerged during the consensus workshop; these are included in our new CHP, along with Healthy People 2010 sections that depict the state-of-affairs in Williams in relation to key targets. The only supporting evidence we have (in knowing this to be true) is realizing the caliber of our graphic designer, and her ability to capture the heart of a project. For us, this entailed the unique approach of creating a CHP not only from data alone, but adding the very real “voice” of community members, with an added twist of gleaned insight from a facilitated consensus workshop between key players (community stakeholders and CCHD Senior Managers). Our final product stands alone as something that could have been born only of the innovative blend of multiple high-level professionals (professional graphic designer, evaluation consultant, community health and education specialist/trained facilitator) coming together for the greater good of the community. Our approach was unique because it went beyond MAPP and implementation of a strategic plan to finding an inventive way to re-energize key players, years later, through an intentional collaboration process (using public health planning and Technology of Participation® skills) that brought all past efforts to life.

As mentioned earlier, Williams stakeholders had a direct role in the creation of this CHP and also guiding future next steps. CCHD will work hard to widely disseminate this CHP to all entities with a vested interest in assisting the community of Williams to achieve improved health outcomes for its people. CCHD involves its community stakeholders every step of the way, from its MAPP initiatives in 2005/2006, to this most recent project with the community of Williams. The creation of this CHP involved multiple trips to the outlying community of Williams, first to meet one-on-one with stakeholders to see from their vantage point, and next to come together during a consensus workshop to ensure we had understood their perspective correctly. Finally, we have created a tangible product that can help make their wishes come true, toward creating the healthy community they dream of. We are providing this to them free-of-charge, as well as offering our continued technical assistance, health care services, and support.

Salary of CCHD Senior Health Planner (in-kind), $3,000 to hire evaluation consultant, $3,000 to hire graphic designer, $800 to have 100 copies of CHP professionally bound.

Sara Wagner, CCHD Senior Health Planner, widely distributed the new Williams CHP by working with CCHD Public Relations Manager Trish Lees to post it to the CCHD website www.coconino.az.gov/health/communityhealthprofile, December 17th, 2008. Wagner also hand-delivered professionally bound hard copies (booklets) to Williams stakeholders who participated in the process, December 22nd, 2008; she also ensured each member of the CCHD Senior Management Team and County Board of Supervisors, and the County Manager, received a professionally bound hard copy by December 31st, 2008. Wagner also drafted a cover letter to accompany these booklets, encouraging each individual to assist the community of Williams in using this new CHP to collaborate with partner agencies to secure grants, develop policies, and enhance overall health care service delivery.

This commitment is ensured because identified next steps in the Collaboration section of the new Williams CHP invite representation of the Williams community onto the Coconino County Board of Health, and CCHD representation onto the Williams Alliance (a group of key movers-and-shakers of health-related projects in that community). We at CCHD also have a vested interest in keeping the momentum (that has been generated through the creation of this Williams CHP) going; furthermore, our Senior Health Planner is a full-time team member whose primary job involves interfacing with communities in this way. Moreover, community stakeholders echoed their enthusiasm and long-term interest in making this CHP a vital part of their planning endeavors. The CCHD Senior Management Team is so committed to sustaining continuous quality improvement efforts that they recently decided to establish a new division dedicated just to this (CCHD Planning and Quality Improvement Service Unit). Furthermore, the very nature of the Williams CHP is that it was designed to be a tool to facilitate the acquisition of grants from various sources.

The Graphic Designer learned about collaborative public health efforts. The CCHD Public Relations Manager learned about current outreach efforts to one of our local communities. CCHD Senior Health Planner learned about the process of posting information electronically to websites (and creating addresses).

Information not provided in 2009