We help health care organizations achieve their goals for team development, clinical care, and community impact.
Today’s health care organizations are being pressed to define and demonstrate their value in return for funding. We help health care organizations meet this value challenge by optimizing care models in response to community needs. We provide these supports for community health centers, community behavioral health agencies, free and charitable clinics, hospitals and health systems, medical practices, pharmacy programs, and more. We can deliver support to a single organization, or to groups of organizations through collaborative initiatives of associations, foundations, and federal grant initiatives. Learn more below.
Community health needs assessment is a requirement for some health care organizations. Regardless of the requirement, community needs assessment can provide vital insight into population health patterns that can affect the future of the organization. We help health care organizations conduct community health needs assessments that are strategically focused and efficiently implemented. We can help you:
- Focus assessment objectives
- Design assessment methods
- Develop community health indicators
- Obtain community insights
- Inventory community assets
- Produce assessment reports, data portals and visualizations
- Educate stakeholders about assessment results.
For clinical programs and organizations, the key to sustainability is to define and communicate value in ways that matter to key stakeholders. By applying a systematic Community Value Analysis, a program or organization can define its value for key partners and funders, and use the results to drive improvement and make the case for funding. CHS offers training and technical assistance to help organizations conduct Community Value Analysis using a five-step process:
- Define Your Audience
- Understand Audience Expectations
- Define Your Value Story
- Define and Produce Your Key Value Indicators
- Produce and Deliver Your Value Reporting Products
The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is a model of care that is intended to optimize the patient experience within and beyond the primary care setting. Community Health Solutions has substantial experience and an extensive toolkit for helping primary care practices build capacity for PCMH. For practices seeking to achieve or sustain NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition, we have specially trained staff and a detailed toolkit designed to streamline the capacity building process. We also support practices that aim to develop specific aspects of the PCMH model without necessarily seeking formal recognition. We are especially adept at helping safety net providers navigate their way through PCMH development. We help primary care practices:
- Assess needs and fefine objectives for PCMH development;
- Design strategies for building PCMH capabilities;
- Develop capacity for implementing the PCMH model;
- Optimize execution through focused problem solving and innovation;
- Demonstrate value through strategic measurement and reporting on PCMH impact and outcomes.
Chronic care management is designed to optimize the care of patients who have or are at significant risk for chronic conditions. The prevalence of chronic conditions has been increasing due to the aging of the population and rising levels of lifestyle-related risk factors. Projecting these trends forward, the growing burden of disease and costs could be crippling. Consequently, chronic care improvement is a high priority for population health management. Community Health Solutions can help you:
- Assess needs and define objectives for chronic care improvement;
- Design strategies for building chronic care capabilities;
- Develop capacity for implementing chronic care improvement;
- Optimize execution through focused problem solving and innovation; and
- Demonstrate value through strategic measurement and reporting on chronic care impact and outcomes.
Integrated primary care models provide systematic coordination of primary care and other services such as behavioral health care and oral health care. A growing body of research shows that integrating primary care with other services can produce positive outcomes for people with multiple healthcare needs. Integrated care models can be designed in a variety of ways depending on population health needs and the capacity of local health care organizations. Community Health Solutions can help you:
- Assess needs and define objectives for integrated care;
- Design an integrated care model that meets defined needs;
- Develop organizational capacity for integrated care;
- Optimize execution through focus problem solving and innovation; and
- Demonstrate value through strategic measurement and reporting on integrated care management and outcomes.
Care transitions occur when a patient moves from one health care provider or setting to another, or from a health care provider to home. Effective care transitions are important for optimizing patient health and for avoiding unnecessary utilization of hospital services and related services. Community Health Solutions works at the community level to support the development of community-based care transition models. We can help you:
- Assess needs and define objectives for optimizing care transition for specific groups of at-risk patients;
- Design care transition models that meet defined needs utilizing evidence-based practices and community partnerships;
- Develop organizational capacity for implementing care transitions;
- Optimize execution through focused problem solving and innovation; and
- Demonstrate value through strategic measurement and reporting on care transitions impact and outcomes.
Quality has always been important in health care, but QI takes on new meaning in an environment of population health management. Today’s payers are highly focused on quality, outcomes, and cost measures as they relate to their sponsored populations. Evidence of this trend can be seen in the expanding array of pay-for-performance models and reporting requirements for patient-centered medical home recognition and other types of credentialing programs. The challenge for health care organizations is to develop a quality management program that has authentic clinical value to the organization while also meeting the requirements of external funders and oversight agencies. We can help you:
- Assess needs and define objectives for clinical quality;
- Design an efficient portfolio of quality measures;
- Develop organizational capacity for quality improvement and quality measurement;
- Optimize execution of quality management including data development, analytics, reporting, review, and action; and
- Demonstrate value through strategic quality measurement and reporting.
Clinical-community partnerships can be essential for optimizing care for patients who need support in the home and community setting. We help health care organizations develop effective strategies to:
- Assess patients’ social risk factor and community support needs
- Incorporate home and community support goals into care plans
- Identify community resources and create referral connections
- Track and optimize patient utilization of community support services
- Evaluate impacts of clinical-community connections on patient experience and outcomes.
Population health management requires new capabilities for improving health and health care for defined populations. Essentially, health care organizations must be able to demonstrate value by delivering effective care models to define groups of patients based on assessed levels of risk. We can help you:
- Assess needs and define objectives for population health management;
- Design strategies for enhancing population health management;
- Develop capacity for implementing population health management for specific patient populations;
- Optimize execution through focused problem solving and innovation; and
- Demonstrate value through strategic measurement and reporting on population health management impact and outcomes.
Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH)
We offer substantial experience and an extensive toolkit for helping primary care practices build capacity for PCMH.
The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is a model of care that is intended to optimize the patient experience within and beyond the primary care setting. As a patient-centered care model, the PCMH is typically viewed as a cornerstone of population health management. In this context, the PCMH can be a vital hub within a broader ‘medical neighborhood’ that emphasizes access, quality, continuity, and care coordination. Today the PCMH model is one of the most widely adopted and highly studied care models in the health landscape.
Community Health Solutions has substantial experience and an extensive toolkit for helping primary care practices build capacity for PCMH. For practices seeking to achieve or sustain NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition, we have specially trained staff and a detailed toolkit designed to streamline the capacity building process. We also support practices that aim to develop specific aspects of the PCMH model without necessarily seeking formal recognition. We are especially adept at helping safety net providers navigate their way through PCMH development. We help primary care practices:
- Define objectives for PCMH development based on assessment of current capabilities;
- Design strategies for building PCMH capabilities;
- Build organizational capacity for implementing the PCMH model; and
- Execute through the process of applying for PCMH recognition.
We use the power of Action Learning to help clinical organizations assess needs, design strategies, build capacity, optimize performance, and demonstrate value. Please click here to learn more our Action Learning supports. You can also contact us for a no-obligation discussion of how we can help your organization achieve its goals.
The CHC Value Model
Telling your Value Story
We created the CHC Value Model to help community health centers define and communicate their ‘value story’ to key stakeholders. Think of your value story as the set of messages that are most likely to motivate your audiences to value and support your organization. We offer a menu of supports to help you define and demonstrate the distinctive value of your CHC.
Community Health Centers as Value Leaders
America’s Community Health Centers (CHCs) deliver tremendous value to the communities they serve. Today it is critically important to define and communicate this value to CHC stakeholders including consumers, service partners, health plans, employers, foundations, and public officials. Community Health Solutions is proud to provide strategy and practice supports to help CHCs achieve their goals. One product of this work is the CHC Value Model.
The CHC Value Model
The CHC Value Model is a strategic model for defining and communicating the value of CHCs. The purpose of the CHC Value Model is to define and communicate the value CHCs deliver so that key audiences will be persuaded support the important work of community health centers. The CHC Value Model can be applied for individual CHCs or for multiple CHCs as a group. The end product for your organization will be a strategy and a product for defining and communicating the value your organization delivers to one or more key audiences whose support you need to sustain your work and achieve your mission. This process of defining and communicating value can be used repeatedly to advance the strategic objectives of your organization.
The Core Messages of the CHC Value Model
The CHC Value Model is based on seven core messages that can be defined and communicated individually or in combination. The messages communicate that CHCs deliver value by:
- Addressing Local Health Needs;
- Providing Access to Vital Services;
- Keeping Patients and Families First;
- Delivering High Quality Health Care;
- Controlling Health Care Costs;
- Supporting Community and Economic Development; and
- Innovating for Excellence.
These core messages are the product of extensive research on the value of community health centers nationally, as well as the insights and idea of the Project Value pilot participants. These messages are offered as a starting point for defining and communicating the value delivered by your organization.
Steps for Applying the CHC Value Model
Organizations can apply the CHC Value Model by following a five-step process as outlined below. Your audiences may include staff, board, service partners, health plans, funders, local media, and public representatives. Your objectives, your value story, your value indicators, and your value products will be customized to reflect the particular interests and circumstances of each audience.
- 1. Define Your Audience
- 2. Define Your Objectives
- 3. Define Your Value Story
- 4. Define and Produce Your Key Value Indicators
- 5. Produce and Deliver Your Value Reporting Products
Supports for Applying the CHC Value Model
Community Health Solutions provides a complete menu of supports for applying the CHC Value Model. Our supports include:
- Access to the CHC Value Model Quick Guide and Toolkit
- Advisory support for defining your value strategy
- Technical support for developing your value model data
- Research and analytic support for producing the following profiles:
- Community health profile
- Health service profile
- Patient profile
- Quality metrics
- Economic impact metrics
- Key innovations
- Other indicators and metrics relevant to your value story.
Next Step: Contact Us
We support application of the CHC Value Model, for individual CHCs as well as collaboratives and associations. To learn more, contact Community Health Solutions for a free, no-obligation consultation.