CLEVELAND, OH—(December 29, 2016)—St. Vincent Charity Medical Center’s commitment to the community it serves is sharpened through its deepened understanding of the breadth and type of health needs present in the community. The Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) serves as a quantitative and qualitative tool to identify the greatest health needs within our community and where the hospital can have the greatest impact.The full report is available here.

The 2016 CHNA was completed by The Center for Health Affairs working with St. Vincent Charity Medical Center and adopted by the St. Vincent Charity Medical Center Board of Directors on December 7, 2016.

The 2016 St. Vincent Charity Medical Center CHNA will serve as a foundation for developing an implementation strategy to address those needs that (a) the hospital determines it is able to meet in whole or in part; (b) are otherwise part of its mission; and (c) are not met (or are not adequately met) by other programs and services in the hospital’s market area. 

This assessment considered multiple data sources, some primary (survey of market area residents, hospital discharge data) and some secondary (regarding demographics, health status indicators, and measures of health care access).

The report provides the following information:

• ·         A demographic profile of the hospital’s primary and secondary market areas;
• ·         Description of the economic status of the population, as a whole, within the hospital’s primary and second market areas (e.g.  poverty, unemployment);
• ·         Community issues which are either related to health and/or access to health care;
• ·         Health status indicators (e.g. morbidity rates for various diseases and conditions, and mortality rates for leading causes of death);
• ·         Health access indicators (e.g. uninsured rates, ambulatory care sensitive (ACS) discharges, and use of emergency departments);
• ·         An outline of the types of health issues related to hospitalization, both in St. Vincent Charity Medical Center and in other area hospitals;
• ·         Availability of community-based health care facilities and resources.

After a thorough analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data, St. Vincent Charity Medical Center through its Community Benefit Steering Committee identified the following health needs that impact the community served by the hospital as its priorities for the 2017-2019 period. These include:

·         Access to mental health and addiction services

·         Obesity and food insecurity

·         Quality of care focusing on culturally appropriate care, health literacy and access

Work has begun on a three-year strategic implementation plan that will be presented to the St. Vincent Charity Board of Directors for approval in April 2017.

For more information about community benefit, the Community Health Needs Assessment or the CHNA Strategic Implementation Plan, please contact Wendy Hoke, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at wendy.hoke@stvincentcharity.com.