Group creates community health plan

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

While the health of Van Wert County residents has improved over the last few years, according to a national survey, a local group is seeking to do even more to significantly impact two of the county’s biggest health concerns.

The Van Wert County Health Collaborative is a group made up of a number of local partners and stakeholders whose goal was to identify and come up with a plan to address health needs in the community.

While county agencies have conducted community health assessments since 1999, the latest community health improvement plan represents the first time local stakeholders have come together to prioritize health issues within the community.

The health collaborative came about primarily through the efforts of the Van Wert County Health Department and Van Wert County Hospital.

“Health departments are required to do community health assessments every five years to maintain certification,” said Kim Haas, director of nursing and immunization program coordinator for the local health department.

Amy Rode, patient/community relations coordinator at Van Wert County Hospital, noted that Ohio hospitals are also required to assess community health as part of their accreditation process.

With that in mind, those two organizations decided it would be wise to combine their efforts and also include representatives from a number of other community agencies to make a comprehensive effort towards improving the community’s health.

Initial efforts to come up with a local health plan began back in 2010, when VWCH and the health department sat down with other community partners to do an initial review of possible health concerns and look at a way to fund an overall county health assessment.

“We brought all these people to the table and just looked at national (health) surveys that were out there,” Haas said.

Funds were also raised to do a community health needs assessment and Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne was contracted to do the assessment.

After the assessment was completed, the hospital and health department formed a county health collaborative in August 2013 that included a number of community partners, including other health agencies, such as Westwood Behavioral Health Center, Tri County Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Board, Family Health Care of Northwest Ohio, local eldercare facilities, the American Red Cross, Home Healthcare Solutions, as well as county agencies, such as the Van Wert County Job and Family Services Department, Van Wert, Lincolnview and Crestview school districts, the United Way, first responders such as police and fire departments, and representatives from several political subdivisions in the county.

The task for the collaborative was concise: develop a community health improvement plan that would identify and address the county’s two biggest health concerns.

The collaborative then conducted six meetings led by facilitator Britney Ward, MPH, director of Community Health Improvement for the Hospital Council of Northwest Ohio, to identify top health priorities and develop strategies for impacting the health concerns identified.

Following an initial meeting, the group worked to choose priorities and then rank them in order of importance. The group then assessed what resources were available to deal with issues identified, and to determine what gaps existed between community needs and viable community resources to address local priorities.

To identify health concerns, the collaborative developed a local public health assessment, as well as a qualify of life survey.

The collaborative came up with two county priority health issues: adult and youth obesity and adult and youth substance abuse.

Those issues were then addressed in a community health improvement plan that was completed in November 2013 that recommended action steps to deal with the concerns.

To decrease obesity among adults and young people, the plan targeted three focus areas: 1. Increase consumption of fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods, 2. Increase exercise, and 3. Increase breastfeeding.

To decrease substance abuse, the plan includes the following target impact areas: 1. Increase prevention strategies, 2. Increase treatment options and, 3. Increase community substance abuse education.

Over the next two years, the county health collaborative will work on completing the action steps identified as part of the plan.

Action steps to decrease obesity include increasing the number of businesses providing comprehensive wellness and insurance incentive programs to employees, implementing the Ohio Hospital Association’s Health Hospitals Initiative, increase nutrition/physical education materials offered to patients by primary care physicians, create a wellness community calendar and increase the number of community gardens and farmers’ markets in the community.

Actions steps to decrease substance abuse include implementing a community-based comprehensive program, increase appropriate disposal of prescriptions/opiates and support medication-assisted treatment options for substance abuse.