COMMUNITY HEALTH NEEDS ASSESSMENT

Decatur Community Hospital in partnership with Infinity Health, and Decatur County Health Department are seeking community input on local conditions that impact health, such as the ability to eat healthy foods and stay physically active in Decatur County.

Over the next few months, Decatur Community Hospital, Infinity Health, and Decatur County Health Department will be working together with other area community leaders to update the Decatur County, IA 2025 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA). Today we are requesting Decatur County community members’ input regarding current healthcare delivery and unmet resident needs.

The goal of this assessment update is to understand progress from past community health needs assessments conducted in 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2022 while collecting up-to-date community health perceptions and ideas. VVV Consultants LLC, an independent research firm from Olathe, KS has been retained to conduct this countywide research.

A brief community survey has been developed to accomplish this work. The CHNA survey link can be accessed by clicking here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DecaturCoOnlineSurvey

The previous CHNA for Decatur County was completed in 2019. (Note: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) require not-for-profit hospitals to conduct a CHNA every three years and adopt an implementation strategy to meet the needs identified by the CHNA). Wave #4 Decatur County, IA CHNA assessment began in December of 2022 and was facilitated / created by VVV Consultants, LLC (Olathe, KS) staff under the direction of Vince Vandehaar, MBA.

Creating healthy communities requires a high level of mutual understanding and collaboration among community leaders. The development of this assessment brings together community health leaders and providers, along with the residents, to research and prioritize county health needs and document community health delivery success. This health assessment will serve as the foundation for community health improvement efforts for the next three years. Important community CHNA Benefits for both the local hospital and the health department, are as follows:

Increases knowledge of community health needs and resources
Creates common understanding of the priorities of the community’s health needs
Enhances relationships and mutual understanding between and among stakeholders
Provides a basis upon which community stakeholders can make decisions about how they can contribute to improving the health of the community
Provides rationale for current and potential funders to support efforts
to improve the health of the community
Creates opportunities for collaboration in delivery of services to the community and
Provides guidance to the hospital and local health department
for how they can align their services and community benefit programs to best meet needs, and
Fulfills Hospital “Mission” to deliver.