Filling the Healthcare void in Orange County

There has been a void in Orange County for some time with respect to a coordinated effort involving healthcare providers, local government and the community to determine and prioritize health needs. The last concerted effort dates back to the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s through the federal health planning program (P.L. 93-641). The now defunct Orange County Health Planning Council (the federally designated Health Systems Agency for Orange County ) did attempt to engage both healthcare providers and healthcare consumers to shape the development of Orange County ’s healthcare delivery system to more closely match community health needs.

For a variety of reasons, related to both the process structure and government imposed mandates, the health planning effort was not successful and federal funding ceased in 1985.

A New Collaboration Imperative

The advent of the "competitive model" of healthcare delivery brought with it an atmosphere less conducive to collaboration. Passage of SB 697 in 1994 aided in refocusing attention on identifying and addressing community health needs, and allowed for a collaborative approach to health needs identification. The health needs assessments initially produced by non-profit hospitals were of great value, though they focused only on specific communities and utilized data sources and methodologies that did not allow comparison of results. It is envisioned that this effort will engender the collaboration necessary to produce an assessment that will be county-wide in scope and also produce consistent findings that are usable at the local community level.

HASC and HCA brought a joint proposal to the Community Benefits Committee to create a collaborative process and to agree to jointly fund a county-wide health needs assessment project that would meet the needs of HASC member hospitals and HCA. A working group was designated, and work began in April 1997 on designing and implementing the Collaborative Orange County Health Needs Assessment.

In 1997, the committee decided that the hospitals should collaboratively perform a county-wide health needs assessment rather than each facility conducting a "service area health needs assessment" to comply with SB 697. The group believed that pooling resources to conduct the assessment could be both effective and cost-efficient. Simultaneously, HCA decided to conduct a comprehensive Orange County health needs assessment.

Aligning with the community's needs

The Collaborative Orange County Health Needs Assessment is envisioned to serve as a foundation for greater community cooperation to meet health needs. Through use of a common assessment, non-profit hospitals will be able to better coordinate and target their community benefit programs avoiding duplication of services with others. Investor-owned hospitals share a similar interest in assuring that their community outreach efforts are aligned with identified needs in communities they serve. The identified needs, and their prioritization, will provide direction to the County of Orange as it determines deployment of public health resources. This will, in turn, result a more coordinated allocation of both public and private health resources in Orange County .

In addition, it is hoped that the county-wide health needs assessment will also stimulate greater collaboration between and among healthcare providers, government agencies, and community organizations.

To learn more about OCHNA contact us today.