Getting More for Your Money: Designing Community Needs Assessments to Build Collaboration and Capacity in Hospital System Community Benefit Work

• Published in: Health promotion practice Vol. 14; no. 6; pp. 868 - 875
• Main Authors: Ainsworth, Dale, Diaz, Heather, Schmidtlein, Mathew C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.11.2013
• Subjects: Capacity Building - organization & administration; Capacity building approach; Community health; Community Health Planning - organization & administration; Community work; Community-Based Participatory Research; Cooperative Behavior; Feedback; Health Promotion - organization & administration; Hospital Administration; Hospitals; Humans; Interprofessional Relations; Needs Assessment; Organizational Objectives; Partnerships; Residence Characteristics; Trust; hospital community benefit; community capacity; health needs assessment; collaboration; community-based research; public health planning and promotion
• ISSN: 1524-8399; 1552-6372
• DOI: 10.1177/1524839912470445

Most community health needs assessments (CHNAs) are unilateral in nature and fail to include a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach, limiting them in their scope. Nonprofit hospitals are required to conduct CHNAs every 3 years to determine where community prevention dollars should be spent. In 2010, a CBPR CHNA approach was conducted with four hospital systems in Northern California. Merging concepts from organization development, the approach included (a) goal determination, (b) use of a guiding framework, (c) creation of a container in which to interact, (d) established feedback loops, and (e) intentional trust-building exercises. The approach was to build lasting relationships between hospital systems that would extend beyond the CHNA. Results using this approach revealed that members representing all four hospital systems (a) began to meet regularly after the CHNA was completed, (b) increased collaboration with other community organizations, (c) expanded their level of intraorganization partnerships, (d) enjoyed the process, (e) felt that their professional knowledge expanded, and (f) felt connected professionally and personally with other hospital representatives. As a result, other joint projects are underway. The results of this study indicate that using CBPR to design a CHNA can build sustained collaborative relationships between study participants that continue.