1. Division of Community and Public Health
LPHA ACCREDITATION AND DATA MEETING/CONFERENCE CALL
April 25, 2012
Attendees: Jamie Opsal and Karen Zeff, St. Louis County Department of Health; Pam Walker,
Janine Arrighi, and Meghan Terle, City of St. Louis Department of Health; Bert Malone, Kansas
City Health Department; Dennis Diehl, Doug Dodson, and Kelley Guertzgen, Jefferson County
Health Department; Gary Zaborac and Jodee Fredrick, Clay County Health Department; Les
Hancock, Susan Thomas, Nancy Hoffman, Craig Ward, Becca Mickels, and Jo Anderson, DHSS
Topic Discussion Action
Agency Sharing St. Louis County contracted with University of New England (UNE) After discussion
Related to Data to conduct community assessment and gather data. They are regarding process,
and Community utilizing the MAPP process and the community assessment is the DHSS agreed to
Assessments for first of four assessments. NACCHO is very interested in utilizing work with St. Louis
them as model for other local health departments. This is the first County individually
Accreditation
time they’ve ever done community assessment at the sub-county to resolve the
level; did 4 regions. Presented their community assessment in current request(s).
December at a health summit; have been working with hospitals as Additionally, Nancy
they are also interested due to provisions of the Affordable Care Hoffman committed
Act (ACA). Hospitals are now required to utilize community health to work with Cherri
needs assessment data in order to comply with the Patient Baysinger for
Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). To maintain their tax- compilation of
exempt status, non-profit hospitals must conduct a community information to
health assessment every three years. The health department is request Office of
piloting MyStrategicPlan and anticipates it will be used county General Counsel
wide. Jamie shared concerns regarding their inability to get data legal review as well
that UNE had received as well as a request for ongoing data. Jamie as review of internal
shared concerns regarding the process put in place by the state for processes for data
the county to obtain the data that UNE received. Concerns about requests from local
inability of St Louis County to obtain vital statistics and hospital public health
discharge data since 2005 were also expressed. agencies. Bert
volunteered to draft
A broader discussion among participating LPHAs voiced frustration a letter to Margaret
with the difficulty of large health departments accessing data for Donnelly from the
community health assessments as they look to meet the national participating health
accreditation standards. A question about whether forms were departments to
more focused toward researcher requests than public health request an
requests was raised. DHSS staff indicated past barriers due to expedited review of
communication, staff turnover, change in agreement and data statutory limitations
sharing processes over time and legal processes. It was suggested and restrictions for
that DHSS might investigate how other states are sharing data on release of data for
ongoing basis with local health departments. use by local health
departments.
Kansas City Health Department submitted their application to
the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) in March. Bert
Malone provided an overview of previous work of a data
subcommittee of DHSS and LPHAs. Suggested that clear
information needed to be shared about the process for LPHAs
to obtain data.
St. Louis City is taking a slow, deliberate approach. Pam Walker
shared, from her involvement with PHAB in development of the
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2. PHAB standards and beta testing, the community based
assessment will have to be broad-based and involve multiple
stakeholders. She pointed out that the standards require
demonstration of collaboration between state and local health
agencies to produce reports/profiles that inform and support
multiple partners with health improvement efforts. She also
indicated that the accreditation standards’ documentation
requirements are specific and advised that those preparing
need to carefully review and followed. Janine shared a process
of meeting with community members by ward (suggestions
were solicited from aldermen); conducting 7 focus groups to
determine health concerns of community. Also have forum of
other health groups (hospitals, police, fire, etc) who have
committed to an intensive 4 hour meeting twice per month for
4 months to develop community health improvement plan with
input from focus groups.
Gary Zaborac reported that Clay County began a community
wide needs assessment process 2 ½ years ago that included
economic development, transportation, schools, healthcare,
etc. The National Civic League was hired as the convener and
they looked at the public health system. As a result of
preparing for accreditation, the health department hired a
quality improvement coordinator about 1 year ago and created
a data analysis section to be able to provide the data needed
for ongoing reporting/work with community partners. They
identified 5 priority areas and continue to refine processes.
Clay County has submitted their letter of intent to PHAB; need
to develop community health improvement plan.
Les Hancock shared that the Association of State and Territorial
Health Officials (ASTHO) is providing consultants for DHSS as
the department begins its preparation. They are providing
feedback how data needs to be shared at the community level.
A June 21 management meeting is scheduled to begin
addressing the domains.
Jefferson County’s current Missouri Institute for Community
Health Accreditation expires in September. They will be
working on a two year extension with MICH. They have met
with their hospital and are working on strategic planning.
Dennis expressed a need for sub-county data, and cited
hospital data as an example. In working with hospital on
community health assessment process, the hospital indicated
MHA provides them with data on admissions, address of
patient, and other demographic data. The hospital is allowed
to use for internal purposes but not for competitive purposes;
the expressed concern about staff doing analysis. The
availability of census track and/or zip code level data is needed
to work effectively with hospital partner. Kelly has met with St.
Louis County to explore use of their phone survey tool for
possible primary data collection, but Dennis indicated this
approach may or may not be feasible due to cost.
Update on MICA Nancy and Becca shared that currently consultants are LPHAs to provide
and analyzing the MICA and EPHT data systems to move these specific requests by
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3. Environmental to a common platform. There is an opportunity within the May 25 to
Public Health next few weeks to provide end user input if there are Andy.Hunter@health.
Tracking Database functionalities or different type of data that LPHAs need mo.gov or
(eg census tract level data, different mapping features, Becca.Mickels@health
ways to display, etc.). .mo.gov .
Next Steps Discussion determined that group felt it would be helpful Jo will arrange future
to continue calls on quarterly basis to share experiences call
related to accreditation preparation. It was noted that
there may be other smaller agencies also interested in an
opportunity to share their work toward accreditation.
LPHAs indicated they would express the importance of
review of data sharing procedures to the department
director.
Next Meeting
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