Implementing Community Health Plans: The Real Story in Local Health Departments

Current research and practice standards support the considerable importance that has been placed on community participation in developing and implementing successful population health improvement plans. Equally critical and yet less recognized factors affecting success include the organizational dynamics and capacity of the local health department (LHD) to meet the demands of implementing plans requiring increased collaboration both within the community and in the LHD. The successful LHD will need to undergo significant organizational shifts to position for success.

WePLAN2015, CCDPH's community health assessment and health improvement plan, was developed with a vision and an implementation model for a sustainable, systems approach. Among the components of the model are an agency cross-disciplinary and management leadership structure, agency cross-disciplinary health priority action teams that coordinate agency activity and performance measurement. Publicly committed by an agency strategic plan, aligning the community health improvement plan to PHAB accreditation, CCDPH has initiated implementation of the broad based health plan, while addressing internal factors that could challenge implementation. As health departments are focused on achieving public health accreditation, major consideration must also be given to the organizational structure and function of the health department to successfully implement the health improvement plan.

Participants who attend this session will learn about the implementation and design issues identified within a local health department challenging successful implementation of a community health improvement plan. Potential strategies, models and tools to meet these challenges will be offered.