HSHS ST. ANTHONY'S MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: Releases Community Health Needs Assessment and Implementation Plan reports

By East Central Reporter Reports

Jul 8, 2018

HSHS St. Anthony's Memorial Hospital issued the following announcement on July 6.

HSHS St. Anthony’s Memorial Hospital’s Mission has always focused on caring for the poor and the vulnerable in the communities they serve. To continue this Mission, the hospital undertook an eight-month planning and implementation effort to develop a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), gathering data and engaging members of its surrounding communities in St. Anthony’s primary service area of Effingham and Jasper counties. The CHNA was conducted jointly with the Effingham County Health Department and Jasper County Health Department.

Following the results of the CHNA, the hospital held discussions with hospital leadership groups, physicians, community leaders, and the two lead steering committees, the Alliance for a Healthier Effingham County (which also serves as the Safe/Healthy People team of Effingham County Impact 2030) and the Jasper County Steering Committee. These discussions led to the identification of the following health needs:

Access to Care
Behavioral Health
Chronic Disease Management & Prevention

After identifying these health needs, the hospital worked in partnership with representatives from the community to develop a set of implementation strategies and adopted an Implementation Plan, part of a broad community effort to address these three priority health needs. The hospital will work collaboratively with a broad range of direct service organizations, coalitions and government agencies to address these needs.

The hospital’s previous CHNA and Implementation Plan was conducted and adopted in Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. In response to the FY2015 CHNA, the hospital planned, implemented and evaluated implementation strategies to address the top identified community health needs from the assessment: Access to Primary Care; Chronic Disease: Diabetes; and Cerebrovascular Disease: Stroke, Nutrition and Smoking. The 2015 CHNA resulted in strategies such as partnering with Effingham Catholic Charities to offer a Community Diabetes Program, which has now expanded to four locations, and offering healthy food bags and gallons of milk at their food pantry to address nutrition and the chronic disease of diabetes. The hospital also worked with Effingham Catholic Charities, to provide the underserved access to emergency dental extractions through the Dental Voucher Program. St. Anthony’s also collaborated with the Effingham Unit 40 School District to offer vision and hearing screenings to improve access to health care services and reduce the burden to area schools, while also continuing to offer the School Wellness Program to area schools to promote nutrition, smoking prevention and chronic disease prevention. Additional programs established since the last CHNA include offering a Smoking Cessation Program; featuring a presentation on heart disease and stroke at the 2016 Women’s Wellness Event, and conducting a media campaign to increase awareness of stroke symptoms.

HSHS St. Anthony’s Board of Directors recently approved the FY2018 assessment and implementation plan that will be carried out over the next three years. The complete document is available for review on the hospital’s web site, stanthonyshospital.org, under “Community Connection – Community Partnerships.” In addition, the Effingham County Health Department’s Community Health Profile Report is available on their web site at effcohealth.org/community-health-survey-reports.

If you have questions the hospital’s CHNA or Implementation Plan, please contact Lisa Hoelscher, Community Benefit Specialist, by calling (217) 347-1219 or emailing lisa.hoelscher@hshs.org. Questions regarding the Effingham County Health Department’s report may be directed to Samantha Weidner at (217)-342-9237 or at sweidner@healthdept.org.

Original source can be found here.