243186 Palm Beach County, Florida's Innovative Community Health NETwork: Best Practices for Creating Dialog and Cooperation to Maximize Resources to Serve the Uninsured and Underinsured Population

Monday, October 31, 2011: 10:50 AM

Claude Earl Fox, MD, MPH , Florida Public Health Institute/ University of Miami School of Medicine, Lake Worth, FL
Debora Kerr, MA , Florida Public Health Institute, Lake Worth, FL
     
In 2007, the Florida Public Health Institute (FPHI) embarked on a mission to create a neutral environment to promote dialog and address community healthcare challenges among all providers of healthcare services to the uninsured and underinsured population of Palm Beach County. FPHI recognized there were few opportunities for providers to interact and at times they viewed each other as competitors for the same limited resources. With the goal of ensuring healthcare resources are deployed most effectively, FPHI united the county's public, non-profit and faith-based providers to form the innovative Community Health NETwork. This scalable and affordable model may serve the nation's healthcare community by illustrating best-practices for generating the dialog and research necessary to determine the range of services available in a county, community, or region, the resources in place, barriers to access, and pockets of unmet needs. FPHI has led the Community Health NETwork to achieve remarkable accomplishments by serving as a neutral convener and resource for research, analysis, design and implementation. Among its successes, most notable to date is the development of a highly detailed, evidence-based and interactive health services provider map that serves a multitude of audiences. It is a reference source for clients and referral agencies and a powerful community-needs assessment tool. Already it has been utilized to develop a compelling case for federal designation as a Medically Underserved Population and may also be used to submit applications for designation as a Federally Qualified Health Center. In addition, its functionality has implications for public policy making.

Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Advocacy for health and health education
Biostatistics, economics
Communication and informatics
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
1. Explain the barriers to cooperation and dialog between various types of healthcare providers serving the low-income and underinsured population of a county, region, state or province. 2. Describe strategies for building cooperation between public, non-profit and faith-based health services providers. 3. Identify sources of demographic and other information that reveals medically underserved pockets and areas of unmet needs within zip-code based data. 4. Explain a community mapping model. 5. Promote cooperation among providers of healthcare to low-income and underinsured populations. 6. Understand how a highly detailed community needs and resource map may assist in applying as a Federally Qualified Health Center and for designation as a Medically Underserved Population.

Keywords: Community Health Assessment, Health Care Utilization

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I serve as executive director of the Florida Public Health Institute and the program presented is an initiative of the Florida Public Health Institute, which I designed and directed.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Leadership, Policy Development, and Advocacy in Health Administration
See more of: Health Administration