LI Course
CE Hours: 3 contact hours

Statement of Purpose and Institute Overview: The purpose of this course is to help public health practitioners and their partners learn about—and use—practical and targeted processes to facilitate the development of effective, comprehensive, and multi-disciplinary public health systems that can achieve significant outcomes in preventing and reducing complex public health problems at the State, local, and tribal levels. Systems thinking approaches in public health have been providing new insights about the etiology and synergy of disease states, and the limited effectiveness of single sector “silo” approaches to address individual issues that are actually embedded in intertwined and mutually-enhancing systems of problems and underlying conditions. Although, public professionals, practitioners and organizations are increasingly being called upon to adopt health systems approaches, to date there has been little formal guidance and few structured tools for effectively doing so. Participants will learn about a structured public health system assessment and planning process that has been successfully used by States, communities and tribes across the country to leverage resources broadly and develop effective, systematic responses to priority public health issues. Participants will engage in interactive discussion and analysis of a systems assessment tool used to identify and prioritize key health system development areas by analyzing indicators in three areas: leadership, capacity, and the use of effective processes. The tool provides users with an objective way to analyze key areas of systems functioning, including: 1) how well the disparate parts of the health system are working together to achieve common outcomes and ward off mutual threats, and 2) how well the system and its members are able to adapt to changing conditions while minimizing disruption to the system’s work. Participants will learn how to use the health system assessment process to maximize outcomes within their own health systems by identifying the key leverage points that are not only most conducive to change themselves, but which also have the capacity to “ripple” positive change and development across other areas of the system. Participants will also learn how to use a logic model process to incorporate assessment findings into a comprehensive strategic plan to develop a sustainable, multi-sector health system that consists of strategic partnerships that are invested with the authority to set priorities, select appropriate interventions, and allocate or reallocate resources as needed. Participants will also learn how the assessment and planning processes have been used and/or adapted at in different settings within States, communities and tribes across the country.

Session Objectives: 1. Explain how States, communities and tribes have used a structured health systems assessment and planning process to develop multi-sector public health infrastructure capable of effectively responding to priority health problems and consequences 2. Identify key systems indicators for health systems assessment 3. Explain how States, communities and tribes have used system assessment findings to develop and implement comprehensive strategic plans for building the capacity of multi-sector health systems

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)